Prophecy
by Folding Turtles
Summary: Angel and Max are star students, their biggest rival being Star. Life goes on as normal, until the day when a certain new, enigmatic student moves in with his two friends and a mysterious little, brown, leather-bound book. Then, a roll call of humiliation, heartbreak, and adventure will follow in his wake. Cue Beethoven's 5th Symphony!
1. Oh, That Darn Science Test

**Hey, hey everyone! Folding Turtles here! I don't really know where this story's headed yet, but the characters are definitely going to be contorted and things are going to get weird. I hope you all won't get _too_ creeped out, and ENJOY!**

**No disclaimer, because I honestly own most of this.**

** ;)**

* * *

We – Angel, Nudge, and I – sat down at out usual lunch table. The voices of the entire eighth grade melted together, creating a familiar buzz in the background. I picked up snatches of conversations here and there. The constant noise made it difficult for me to concentrate on anything that wasn't trivial, and even harder to be alone in my own head.

But then again, this was a middle school cafeteria. Get used to it.

Nudge swung her all-too-conspicuous lime green lunch box in an exaggerated arc over our heads and onto the table. It landed with a sickening _thud_, making me wince for the orange that I knew was inside. (Nudge really liked oranges; she had one every day for lunch.) Then, Nudge plopped down in her usual seat, making her blue and black checkered Vans flash through the air. She took off her trademark black fedora with one hand and shook out her hair. The neon purple streaks that shot through her short, asymmetrical haircut shivered with the movement.

Angel meekly climbed in, followed by _yours truly_. She was nervously rubbing her hands together between her legs. Her shoulders were hunched over meekly; she was trying to take up as little space as possible. She tugged her blue jacket tighter around her body and tapped her feet in an erratic rhythm on the floor.

"So…" I said when I had sat down.

Angel didn't respond. On her other side, Nudge was grunting as she ferociously tackling the arduous task of peeling a very thick-skinned orange without the aid of a plastic knife.

Our friends came over and set their things down. Some of them went over to the microwave to heat up leftovers for lunch. _Lucky._

Why was Angel so tense, you might ask? And why was I – the great Maximum Ride – at a loss for words?

Because we had just taken a science test.

And it was the kind where everything was multiple-choice, so all the teacher has to do was run the answer sheets through a scanner, and we instantly know our _score_.

Angel and I, but especially Angel, cares a lot about the percentages that the grading-machine spit out at us. To Angel, the difference between a 99% and a 100% was possibly the biggest gap in the world. We were the star students of our school. We had never gone home with anything less than an A-.

That is, until after _this_ test.

*Flashback*

Angel walked cheerfully over to me after the test was over.

"How did you think it was?" I asked her. It had been one of the hardest ones this entire year. The concepts seemed easy in class, but for some reason, Mrs. Hutkins, our science teacher, felt the need to put impossibly difficult and confusing questions on the test.

"Okay. There were a few…" Angel drifted off. If Angel didn't get something right, she automatically assumes that no one else did, either. "What'd you get?"

_That _is the most important question of all time – to her.

"A ninety-two," I stated matter-of-factly.

Angel's happy face fell instantly.

"What about you?" _That_ was the question I probably shouldn't have asked.

Angel stormed away to the cafeteria in a huff, clearly mad at me for doing better than she did on the test. It was one of the only reasons she would ever be mad at anyone for.

"Angel?"

She didn't respond.

"Angel?" I asked again.

"I'm fine, Max." She took the eraser that she had gripped in her hand and mercilessly stabbed her pure white binder with it, jabbing the plastic material viciously with a scrunched, resolute look on her face.

When the eraser-of-doom comes out, you know her score was _bad_.

Angel continued to exercise her worn-out pink eraser for a good ten seconds, causing some of the papers inside to shift. A corner of her graded answer sheet peeked out the side of her binder. I didn't mean to look, but my eyes were wandering around, waiting for her calm down, and they latched onto the incriminating number stamped at the bottom.

_89_

That was _definitely_ not good.

Angel caught me staring and shoved the telltale paper back inside her abused binder. Her mutilated eraser gave a wheeze of relief that it was being given a break from the exercise. Its head hung down limply.

I tried to cheer Angel up by asking the question that had never failed to do so before until today. "What about Star?" _That_ was the question that made it worse.

Star was another _star_ student – no surprise – but she acts mean towards Angel, Nudge, pretty much all of our acquaintances, and me. She is our biggest competitor in the educational realm, even though we usually end up beating her on tests and quizzes alike. Angel in particular takes great relish in besting Star; a gloating smile would be smeared over her face for a whole day.

This time, however, was Star's time to bruise herself with a smirk.

"Good job, Angel," Star's voice dripped with sarcasm as she passed by Angel and me, followed by her cronies, Maya and Kate. Predictably, Star was wedged in the middle of the trio. They walked in sync. I don't think I had ever seen the threesome apart ever before. "You were _so_ close."

And Angel's eraser braces itself for another round of attacks…

"Ignore her," I told Angel as Star, Maya, and Kate walked away. "I know you're better than her."

"Why – am – I – so – stupid!" Angel vehemently muttered. A blow to her binder punctuated each word.

"You're not stupid," I was failing epically at bringing her up.

"_She_," Angel practically spit out the word. "Got a _darling_ little ninety-one, and _I_ got a _freaking_ eighty-nine!"

Her fist was clenched so tightly around her eraser that I was worried her knuckles might crack with the strain, not to mention the fact that her eraser might die of suffocation.

"It's okay, Angel. You're going to beat her next time," I attempted to calm her down.

Angel hissed with contempt under her breath, "_Next time_."

*End flashback*

And that is why Angel is currently giving all of us the death glare. She hates it when people do better than her on anything.

We desperately needed something to break the stifling tension.

As if she heard my unspoken wish, Nudge cried out in fake pain. "Ahhh! My eye! It _burns_!" Leave it to Nudge and her flamboyant, loud personality to stir things up.

"What happened?" I asked, concerned.

Nudge held her partially pealed orange in one hand and her tightly shut eye with the other. A thin rivulet of orange juice ran down her cheek from the heel of her hand.

"Don't pound an orange too hard when you're trying to peel it," Nudge said vaguely in explanation. "It can fight back."

"Are you okay?" I chuckled softly, mentally shaking my head.

"Yeah, I'm good. My eyes get stronger _every_ time that happens," Nudge laughed and resumed hacking away at her orange with her long nails.

Angel just sighed and propped her head up on her hands.

After we finished lunch (Bouncy hot dog Monday – I'm not kidding about the bouncy part; if you throw it on the ground, it will literally rebound three feet in the air. Nudge had _a lot_ of fun with the hot dogs today. Makes you wonder if the hot dog is mostly meat – or rubber.), Angel, Nudge, and I headed off to world history. We fought against the lethargic flow of students and the annoying cheerleader congregations loitering by their lockers who were putting yet _another_ coat on top of their already-foot-thick mascara and adjusting their disgustingly skintight yoga pants.

Angel and I were in our seats well before the bell rang. We got out the packet Mr. Colby, our world history teacher, had given to us yesterday like the instructions said to do so on the board.

When the teacher walked in, I fixed my eyes on him, following his steps around the classroom like they would give me an answer on our next test – the epitome of attentiveness. Angel was doing the same.

"So," he clapped his hands together loudly. "I don't really have much planned for you today. Read your packet and highlight anything important."

I moved to get my highlighter out of my neatly organized pencil pouch.

"Mr. Colby, how will we know what to highlight?" one of the football players asked.

Angel rolled her eyes.

Mr. Colby gave the guy a look, cocking his hands on his hips like an annoyed teenage girl, and said bluntly. "You _read_ it. I'm not going to give you all the answers."

I didn't wait to see what the jock's reaction would be. I delved into first paragraph. As I read, I thought about Mr. Colby's response to the jock. It seemed like he had inadvertently given us an answer:

_It is 1400 B.C. The shrine of the Oracle of Delphi encircles a sacred spring. It is possibly the most important shrine in all of Greece and considered to be the omphalos (the center, or literally, the navel) of the world. _

_You have traveled many miles from across Greece to visit with the Oracle and have your questions about the future answered by the Pythia, the priestess of Apollo. When you finally meet her, her answer is cryptic, and you argue with yourself what the correct interpretation of the answer is. You might summon enough courage to ask the Oracle to explain herself, but then_ _you would need more gold. The Oracle is always happy to make another prophesy in exchange for the precious metal._

"_Now your statues are standing and pouring sweat. They shiver with dread. The black blood drips from the highest rooftops. They have seen the necessity of evil. Get out, get out of my sanctum and drown your spirits in woe," the Oracle proclaims._

I shuddered at the thought of what the Oracle had seen in the future to give a prophecy so grim and despairing.

But, this is history. We always _know_ what will happen next.

Right?


	2. New Neighbors

After the bell rang, signifying the end of World History, I packed my things together and joined the stream of students heading to their buses. It's merely an observation, but I noticed that the traffic flowed _significantly_ faster when there was the prospect of going home than when there was another class ahead.

When I walked out of the school building, I instantly shivered and pulled my coat tighter around me. The icy air hit my face like nails and nipped at any exposed skin. I looked up, finding the sky was overcast with heavy gray clouds. My breath and the exhaust puffing out the back of the buses showed starkly in the air. Jack Frost was bound to make a visit tomorrow. We might even get snow.

I smiled to myself at the thought and boarded my bus. Soon after I sat down, more kids began to pile in. One very hardy soccer player, who was braving the winter in Nike shorts, sat in the seat in front of me.

"I'm not cold at all!" He felt the need to obnoxiously announce this to his friends.

"Really?" They questioned the truth of his statement.

"Yeah. In fact, I think it's actually pretty hot in here," he replied. Then, raising his voice so everyone on the bus could hear his _delightful_ voice, he said, "Hey! Open the windows! It's too hot in here!"

Nobody listened to him.

"Open the windows!" He made another futile attempt.

Seeing as no one else would do what he said, he decided to take matters into his own hands. He got up and dramatically pushed his own window all the way down. I cringed, knowing what would end up happening once the bus started moving.

"Much better! This _cold_ air is amazing!" His friends rolled their eyes at his stupidity.

Our bus backed out of its parking space and slowly accelerated away from our school. The wind from the stupid soccer player's open window flew right towards me. The freezing blades of cold air rushed into my eyes, making me squint, and blew my brown hair wildly behind me.

Oh God it was _cold_.

"Wooo! It feels _good_!"

_Shut up, you idiot_. I thought at the soccer player. _You don't even feel anything. It's all coming back to me._

The wintry air continued to assault me at 30 miles per hour. I slowly curled into myself, trying to keep myself warm in our metal shell of a bus. I blew into my hands and rubbed them together.

"Friction," I could remember Mrs. Hutkins saying, "transfers kinetic energy into thermal energy, which is heat."

_Why is the energy not transferring?_

"There are two factors that affect the friction force: the texture of the two surfaces and how hard they press on each other," Mrs. Hutkins chimed in my head.

I pushed my hands together harder and continued rubbing. Weird dirty shreds of dead skin and the grime of a school day fell like snowflakes into my lap.

_Gross._

I gave up trying to warm myself up and succumbed to the freezing winter wind and the maniacal soccer player, who was still yelling about how hot (temperature wise, you creep) he was at the top of his lungs.

When I finally got home, rattled by the jarring bus ride and frozen as a Popsicle, the first thing I did was shove my feet into my doggie-slippers and turn up the heating.

"Hi, Max. How was school?" my Mom, Dr. Martinez, asked me.

"Great. I have a lot of homework, and I almost froze on the bus because some idiot decided to open the windows, but other than that – _great_," I replied, snidely sarcastic.

"Well…" she looked like she wanted to say something else.

I got out my books and attacked some math problems.

_Find A if sinA = -3/5, and A terminates in quadrant 3._

"We have some new neighbors, you know," my Mom finally said.

"Really?" Lately, because of the economy downturn, a lot of our neighbors have been selling their houses. Our block has been an alley of For Sale signs for the past half year. I doubted the empty houses would be occupied any time soon, seeing as no one had the money to invest in a new house right now. But, I guess I was wrong.

"_Three_ new families are moving in today," my Mom said.

"_Three_?" I was surprised. It seemed like the biggest coincidence that three distinct families would move into our neighborhood on the same day.

"Yes. They have children your age, too, from what I've seen."

Oh, here it comes again. My Mom was always pushing me to make more friends – expanding my horizons – as she would say. I had always thought that being buddies with Angel and Nudge would be enough, but my Mom is always worried that I might feel lonely and then be driven to depression or something like that if I wasn't the social hub of my school.

I have plenty of friends for me. We mostly only hang out at school, but that was okay by me. I'd be overwhelmed if I had to answer text messages every five seconds or so from a whole list of contacts and keep up with my immaculate schoolwork. There wouldn't be enough time in a day to do everything I had to do, much less get to the stuff that I wanted to do.

"Uh huh…" was all I said in response. I tapped my pencil quickly on my homework.

"I was hoping you would come and say hi to them with me. We need to leave a good impression," my Mom was definitely getting onto something.

"I'll see them tomorrow. They _are_ going to go to school, right?" I held a dread, almost, in greeting new people.

"Yes, but I've already offered…" my Mom squirmed a little bit, about to breach an uncomfortable topic.

"Offered what?" I pretended to be distracted by my math homework.

"To help them unpack, show them around a little…" she looked guilty.

"Okay. Sure," I knew what was going to come next.

"And I told them about you. I said you'd be happy to give the kids a tour," she looked pure convicted now.

"What? Why?" I don't know what my Mom was hoping to get out of this.

"They seem like nice children. You should have some friends in our neighborhood." _That_ was her explanation?

"Like, _now_?" I was trying incredibly hard to keep my voice in check.

My Mom nodded.

"Alright. I'll go out and be friendly," I got up to go put on my coat and leave.

"Thanks, Max. I'll have cookies waiting for you when you get back!" Now she was trying to bribe me.

Not that I minded her choice of bribery. My Mom's cookies were amazing! Gooey in the center, crispy around the edge, the chocolate chips melting whenever they hit my tongue… The sweetness exploding in my mouth…

I'd better stop thinking about the prospect of eating cookies, or I might start salivating during the tour and our new neighbors would think I was rabid or something. I doubt that would count under being "neighborly and friendly".

**A/N: Like a good neighbor, State Farm is there... _with a plate a cookies_! **

**So, I think I'll just be updating once every week. I don't know yet. I might post more frequently, if I can find some time. **

**And, I know this chapter was kind of slow, but I needed an introductory chapter for... well, you'll see next time. ;)**


	3. The Book

My Mom walked me over to greet our new neighbors. The wind had picked up since I left school. Frost would be inevitable tomorrow.

She mounted the steps leading to the front door and rang the doorbell. A tall lady with straight, jet-black hair and the figure of a model opened up. I could see that cardboard boxes were still stacked everywhere. Objects were strewn about the floor in a haphazard manner. A man, who I presumed was the lady's husband, and three other kids – two boys, one girl – were hustling around, trying to finish the monumental task of unpacking.

"Hi!" my Mom said cheerfully, her wide smile beamed at the lady. "I'm Dr. Martinez, and this is my daughter, Max, who I was telling you about earlier this afternoon." She gestured to me. I smiled politely, like I was supposed to and gave a curt nod.

"Oh! Do come in!" the lady opened the door wider, motioning for us to go inside.

"Hello, Max. I'm Mrs. Tricott," the lady introduced herself when we were in, closing the door swiftly behind her.

"Hello, Mrs. Tricott. Pleased to meet you," I extended a hand, which she promptly took and shook with friendliness.

Formalities were so _boring_, and yet I was expected to go through them every time.

"Let me introduce you to my son, Nicholas," Mrs. Tricott gestured toward one of the boys. He looked up, and when his gaze passed over me, something like surprise crossed his face. Before I could really analyze it, though, he covered it back up with a neutral, nonchalant expression of indifference. Nicholas nodded once in our direction and went back to his task.

"Forgive me, but Nick isn't really the talkative type," Mrs. Tricott apologized. "The other two are his friends. The boy is Isaac Gabrielle, and the girl is Lissa Brown."

"Where did you move from, again?" my Mom started her small talk.

"California," Mrs. Tricott said, laughing. "We're not quite used to the weather here, yet."

As my Mom and Mrs. Tricott continued talking, I observed the three kids. My Mom was right. They were about my age. The thing about them having moved from California was understandable, too, but not for Isaac.

Nicholas and Lissa both had tanned, olive skin. Freckles swooped across Lissa's cheekbones. She had an explosion of red hair. She dressed radically different from Nudge. Where Nudge was Vans and worn-in jeans, Lissa was sliver ballet flats and ruffled blouses.

Nicholas' style mirrored his silent character. He had on a black leather jacket, dark jeans, and black Converse. Whenever he moved, his long black hair rippled like spilled ink.

Isaac, on the other hand, had the fairest skin I had ever seen. His spiky blond hair was almost white. The tips were dyed electric blue, so he looked like he was wearing a crown of blue flames. He was also one of the most dapper dressers. He had on a gray sweater that let the plaid collar of a button-up shirt show underneath. His maroon skinny jeans were rolled up enough that his ankles could be seen. A pair of gray denim sneakers finished off his outfit.

"Are you ready to go?" Mrs. Tricott asked the three kids and me. Clearly, she was done having small talk with my mom.

In response, Fang sprang up like a panther and brushed his hands together. He led the other two over to his mom.

"Nick, Lissa, Isaac, this is Max," Mrs. Tricott introduced them to me. I waved and smiled – _more_ formalities. "She's going to show you around the neighborhood a little."

My Mom escorted us out the door. "Have fun, Maxie!"

That was _embarrassing_. I mentally did a facepalm and ran down the steps with Nicholas, Lissa, and Isaac following me.

I led them down the driveway.

"How old are you, Max?" Lissa asked me.

I looked around, making sure we hadn't hit any landmarks yet. "Thirteen."

"Same with us, except Nick's one year older," Lissa said. I looked at Nicholas and found his onyx eyes drilling into me, searching for something. I quickly looked away again. _What did he want with me?_

"Do you play any sports?" Lissa asked again.

"Um… Not really. I can play tennis a little." _See_, even though I'm a star student, I'm not a total nerd.

I pointed out an intersection to them. "This is the bus stop."

"What's that?" Isaac pointed at a tree nearby. It was covered with ABC (already been chewed) gum of all different colors. It looked like it had mutated and grown rainbow colored pustules.

"Don't touch it," I warned, seeing him reach out to poke one of the pustules.

"This is the gum tree. If you ever chew gum in the morning, you stick it here before the bus gets here. The driver doesn't allow us to chew during the ride," I explained.

I saw comprehension dawn Isaac's face. "So all of that's…"

I smirked. "Yeah. Don't touch."

"So, Nicholas," I continued to walk. "Why did you three decide to move here? Isn't California nicer?"

"You can call him Nick. Or Fang. That's what we call him," Lissa offered. "I'm still Lissa, and Isaac's Iggy."

I quickly processed their nicknames. Iggy made sense; it was basically his initials. But _Fang_?

"Why Fang?" I asked.

Nicholas didn't answer my question. Instead, his demeanor turned more tempestuous.

"Because, if you rub him the wrong way, he'll unleash his wrath on you – his teeth at your neck. Right, bro?" Iggy nudged Fang.

"I'm not a flipping vampire," Fang muttered under his breath, barely loud enough that I could hear. Then, he raised his voice a notch to give a cryptic answer to my first question, "And California… limited us."

I thought about this some. _Limited?_ Isn't California the land of movie stars and stuff? If that state limits you, where else would you make your dreams come true? In the middle of winter smack dab in the center of the Midwest? Smart place to move.

I showed them the rest of the neighborhood, and then brought them back to Mrs. Tricott and my Mom.

"Did you have fun, kids?" my Mom asked.

"We won't get lost now," Iggy replied.

"Thank you, Dr. Martinez. Max." Mrs. Tricott looked us both in the eye.

"Oh, you're welcome. Call us anytime you need help with something. We're just right down the street," my Mom looked genuinely pleased with herself.

Nicholas, Iggy, and Lissa had retreated inside the house. They were huddled together, talking and furtively glancing at me. I could hear snatches of their conversation floating over to me.

"Are you sure she's the _one_?" Iggy asked Nicholas. What _one_?

"So far, everything The Book said was going to happen has happened, with her in the middle of it all," Nicholas hissed back. I didn't know if it was supposed to be capitalized, but the weight that Nicholas said "The Book" with made it seem like it was important enough to be. _Hold on_, I thought Mrs. Tricott said he didn't talk much.

"It could be another coincidence. It's not like that hasn't happened before," Lissa said.

"We'll see if she falls tomorrow," Nicholas said after thinking for a while.

"And if she doesn't?" Lissa prompted him.

"Then she's not here. We go some where else," Nicholas said confidently.

If I _fall_? They want me to _fall_?

"Alright. Good bye!" Mrs. Tricott called after my Mom and me as we walked down the street. Well, actually, my Mom dragged me behind her. I wanted to hear more of the interesting conversation going on between the kids.

"How'd it go?" she asked me when we got back to our house. My Mom put some Pillsbury cookies into the oven.

"Okay. They're pretty nice." I cracked open my math book again.

"Good. Good." My Mom set the timer for ten minutes.

The next morning, when I rolled out of bed, I looked out my bedroom window. My predictions were right. The ground was covered in a thick layer of ice – freezing rain. The sun peeked wanly through the clouds.

Sadly, it wouldn't be enough to call a snow day. No, our district feels the need to have its students go to school in all sorts of weather. I admire their spirit, but sometimes, there are days when we shouldn't have to risk the snow and ice to go to school.

Last year, Angel's mom's car did a 180 in the ice. It almost gave her and her daughter a heart attack. Nudge's bus got a wheel stuck in a snow drift the year before, and she was two hours late for school. She wasn't really that disappointed about it, though. She had a missed a math test that she had forgotten to study for, so she got an extra day to make it up.

I got ready for school and headed out the door for my bus stop, wearing my fuzzy boots. Images of Olympic ice skaters ran through my head as I treaded carefully on the ice, trying to keep my balance. As I relived their triple lutz jumps, I lost my focus on walking carefully and planting my foot down perpendicular to the ground. My right foot slipped out from under me. Luckily, I quickly regained my balance.

_That was kind of fun!_ I thought.

I slid my left foot out and let it glide a few feet on the ice before moving my right foot out again. Right, left. Right, left.

By now, I had arrived at the bus stop. I was the first person, but I could see Nicholas, Iggy, and Lissa walking towards me from their houses.

I carefully lifted one leg so my foot rested against my other knee, testing my balance on the ice. I still stood straight up. I put my leg down. Then, I picked it up as I pushed off the ice with my supporting leg, doing a single turn on the ice. I laughed. _It worked!_

I did the turn two more times, each time going faster and faster around. By my fourth turn, I was kind of dizzy, but I pushed off again anyway. I knew I had made a mistake the second I lifted my other leg. I felt my center lurching to the side and back. The world teetered on its axis for a split second. Then, _flop_. I landed on my backside on the ice. When it righted itself, I was sitting on the ice, my backside getting colder and the bruise catching up to the nerves. I was stunned for a minute, trying to sort out what had just happened.

Then, Nicholas was beside me, holding out a hand.

"Do you need some help?" he asked me, his two glowing coal-eyes staring down at me, a hint of a smile playing at his lips.

I shook my head and tried to refrain from gasping when my body registered the fall. _The fall_. Everything the three kids had said yesterday rushed back to me, but I was still as confused as ever. "Thank you, Nicholas, but no, I'm fine."

"You can call me Nick," he said simply. I don't what it was, but I felt like it would be weird to call him by a nickname instead of his formal name. How ironic – the girl that despises formalities suddenly only calls someone by their real name.

I pushed myself off of the ice, wincing as I did so. _Oh god, sitting in a chair for seven hours is not going to be fun. _

"That's what you think now, but you'll get the full effect a few hours from now," Iggy cackled.

I just glared at him. Thank you _so much_ for reminding me of that one little fact, Iggy.

"Iggy, be nice," Lissa scolded him.

Other kids started milling into the bus stop. Some stuck their gum on the gum tree like tradition states.

Only as we were boarding the bus did I notice Nicholas frantically flipping through a brown, leather-bound book and whispering urgently to Iggy and Lissa. I looked back once as I jumped up the steps, the golden lettering on the front instantly sending shivers down my spine:

_Maximum Ride._

**A/N: Been there, done that. I'd hate to be Max. ;) **

**And the gum tree does exist. I saw it when I was little, and I thought it was a statue. So, the idiotic six-year-old me decided to touch it. I found out that the tree was indeed, _not a statue_. Heh heh...**


	4. Nicholas

I set my things down beside me in my seat and looked out the window of the bus. What my Mom always says about me not being very social is absolutely correct. All of my friends lived in a different subdivision, so I always sat by myself on the bus and looked out the window as the houses and streets rushed by. I didn't really mind. The empty silence gave me space to think, or mentally review notes if there was going to be a test that day.

Today, however, was clearly going to be different.

Iggy and Lissa sat down in a seat behind me. Their expressions were grave after talking about whatever it was in that brown leather-bound book that was so secretive and interesting. Nicholas paused in the aisle next to me and looked at me curiously, a question written in his features.

I knew what he was asking me without having to hear it. I sighed and scooted my stuff over so he could sit down and not squash my math book in the process. Nicholas got in. He was clutching his book with a death grip. The yellowed pages of the book wheezed and gave a raspy cough as Nicholas began to flip through it again.

The bus driver closed the doors and our bus began to roll. Every bump in road jarred me, causing the bruise on my backside to grow exponentially painful. I was all too aware of how badly paved our neighborhood's roads were.

And how close Nicholas was sitting to me.

Something in my stomach fluttered as we continued the ride in silence. He was immersed in the book he was reading. I was trying to calm myself down.

The sun arched through the bus windows and hit the side of his face an angle that illuminated his profile in a golden light. His silky black hair rolled along for the ride. His eyes quickly skimmed the words printed in his book. I suddenly wanted to get to know him better. Just as I was about to say something, I scolded myself. _What are you thinking? He just moved in. You have to focus on other things._

But my voice betrayed me anyways.

"What are you reading?" I asked Nicholas quietly, leaning over so I could just about make out the words he seemed so interested in.

When he saw me trying to catch a glimpse of his book, he immediately shut it. Specks of dust floated out of the pages. I imagined the book whimpering and shivering with the impact.

_Gosh, Nicholas, rude much?_

"It's nothing," he said quickly, reapplying his indifferent expression.

"Is it good?" I asked him. Now I was definitely curious about his mysterious book. He and his two friends were trying to keep something from me.

Nicholas thought for a minute and then gave a very crisp answer, "It's okay."

I don't think he wanted to tell me any more, but I had to find out what was so intriguing about that little book. Don't people know that the more you tell someone "It's nothing," the more they know that it _is_ something?

"What's it about?" I kept pestering Nicholas. He was getting pretty annoyed by now, probably equating me to a pesky fruit fly.

Nicholas sighed and turned to me looking very tired of our conversation. "Look, Max. If I told you that it's my diary, would you quit bugging me?"

I was startled. _His diary?_ What the flip? Why would his diary have my self-pronounced nickname stamped in gold lettering on the cover? He was telling a lie. I knew it. He was a pretty good liar, then, because he didn't even flinch when I narrowed my eyes in suspicion of his falsehood.

"Fine." I wasn't going to get anything out of him.

"Good." He leaned back in our seat and stuffed the book in his backpack to avoid any further interrogations.

We didn't talk for the rest of the bumpy bus ride (_Ow_.), but I still couldn't make the butterflies in my stomach stop fluttering. I tried to mentally swat them, but that didn't really work. I scooted myself closer to the window, almost plastering myself against the metal framework of the bus, and didn't even look at Nicholas until we were at school. I could not let him have the satisfaction of knowing how much _not knowing_ everything was killing me.

When we got off the bus, I let Iggy and Lissa in front of me. I was climbing down the steps, and the threesome was almost to the main doors of our school. They were talking again. Nicholas whipped his brown book out and flipped through it, pointing things out to his two friends. I heard what they were saying from a greater distance than I thought was possible – for most people anyway. I had always had exceptional hearing. It's both a blessing and a curse, like anytime the school decides to have a fire drill. That keening, wailing siren is no fun for anyone, but especially not for me.

"You told her what?" Lissa exclaimed.

"Well, I had to get her off my back somehow," Nicholas replied impatiently.

"Dude, you know that she's going to want to know what it says even more now, don't you?" Iggy said.

"She may _want_ to know, but she's not going to hound me for answers. Girls tend to respect the diary = privacy etiquette thing," Nicholas said.

"Keyword – _tend_. What if you're gone somewhere, and then she decides to mosey over and take a quick peek? We don't know if she's the one yet," Lissa hissed with a touch of anger.

"I'm sure she won't. After I told her, she just stared out the bus window for the rest of the time. And she's fitting the descriptions so far," Nicholas countered.

I was totally lost. _The one_? Again? And what does the freaking book _say_? I glowered in frustration.

"Fang, I don't think she's going to back off. I think she chose to ignore you because you made her mad," Iggy hit the nail right on the spot. _Darn right_, I was mad at Nicholas. He and his precious book were so infuriating.

"And if she does turn out to be the one, and she stays mad at you, things might not work out…" Lissa drifted off, suggesting a consequence that the other two knew, but that I had no clue about.

"It'll be fine. Trust me. I know what I'm doing," Nicholas made a move to enter the building.

Iggy suddenly burst out laughing. "Our stoic Fang has a diary! And the best is, it's all about–"

Lissa cast a look in my direction and clamped her hand down over Iggy's mouth. _Aw, come on._ I was just about to figure out what Nicholas' little brown book is about.

"I think she can hear us," Lissa hissed in Iggy's ear. _You betcha, I can._ "Don't say anything."

"Impossible. There's no way someone can hear us from this distance," Nicholas shook his head, his black hair sashaying with the movement. It looked like it'd be fun to touch – to feel liquid silk. _Oh, what am I thinking?_

"Unless, she's the one," Iggy said, his eyes widening.

Oh yeah, and that's another thing. I also have amazing eyesight. Even though I study a bunch, I'd never needed glasses. Every year, when I have my annual eye check-up, the doctors say I'm still a perfect 20-20. I can see amazingly distant details that most other people would only register as a blur in the background. I can also read Mrs. Hutkins' microscopic handwriting from my seat in the very back of the classroom. That's why I am able to see Iggy's eyes grow as big as saucers.

"That's not certain yet." Nicholas repeated the phrase that they keep saying over and over to each other. _I might be "the one", but I might not._

"Come on, we have to go in." The three of them entered our austere-looking school. I ran down the walkway leading to the three sets of double doors and went inside myself.

The hubbub of another school day was already under way.

The principals, dressed in neon colored clothes way too young for their age, patrolled the hallways like an overseer, holding a walkie talkie in one hand and a fancy dessert from the forbidden-to-students teachers' lounge in the other.

The teachers stood to the side, ignoring the students and only talking to each other.

Clusters of cheerleaders were packed around each other's lockers, analyzing which color of eye shadow they should use to impress their jock boyfriends. The said jock boyfriends were piled in another part of the hallway, analyzing which pose they should use to ask out their cheerleader girlfriends to look the most masculine and smelting.

The nerds scrambled around the hallways like rats, praying that no one shoves them into a locker or pushes their books onto the floor.

I rushed to my own locker, spun the combination in, retrieved my books, and joined in the chaotic stream of students heading to first hour. I passed by Angel and Nudge's lockers.

"There's new kids, aren't there?" Nudge asked me bluntly. She had swapped her usual blue and black checkered Vans for a pair of worn-in black lace-up leather boots. Her hair was pinned to one side to make the look more severe.

"Yep, three," I answered, instinctively dodging a paper hornet being thrown through the air. "They moved into my neighborhood yesterday."

"The boy's pretty hot, isn't he?" Nudge wiggled her eyebrows at me, smirking while doing so.

I looked down. I could feel the color rising in my cheeks. "Which one?" I asked, even though I knew whom she was talking about – Nicholas.

"Don't play dumb. The dark, stormy looking one," Nudge laughed.

"Um… Well…" I was struggling to find an answer that would get Nudge to quit questioning me, but that wouldn't reveal too much.

Angel started giggling at my reaction.

My cheeks were on fire.

"You like The Prince of Darkness, don't you?" Nudge gave me the poke of her namesake.

Angel looked like she was going to burst if her giggles couldn't be expressed at their full volume. The flames licked up my ears.

"No, I don't," I was trying to convince myself as well as my friends. "And his name's _Nicholas_."

"Oooo. _Nicholas._" Angel let the name roll off her tongue casually – slowly like honey. "Such a _formal_ thing to call your new neighbor."

I quickened my pace, but Angel and Nudge caught up with no problem. I may have extraordinarily good hearing and sight, but my speed walking was a skill that needed a bit of improvement.

"You call him Nicholas! You're already on a _first-name basis_!" Nudge squealed with delight.

"Guys, I don't like him, _alright_?" I turned around to face them, so they would know that I was being serious. I was _still_ trying to convince myself…

Nudge and Angel looked at me, but their gaze was so distant that I knew they were staring at something behind me. In sync, the giggles spluttered out of them.

"What? Do you guys not believe me or something?" I shifted my books onto one arm so I could attempt to cross my arms.

My friends didn't answer me. They dodged behind me, still red from laughter. I decided to see what was so funny. _Big mistake_.

The very Nicholas we had been discussing smirked at me from a few feet away. One side of his mouth was lifted slightly higher than the other in a lopsided grin. He was leaning against a locker with one foot crossed over the other in a relaxed position. One hand was in his jeans pocket. The other limply held a folder and – you guessed it – his little brown book.

_Oh my god… Did he just hear everything we had said? Had he seen my reaction? Oh, no, no, no…_

I turned away again, my face and ears probably glowing by now.

"Did you guys know _he_ was here the whole time?" I hissed at Nudge and Angel. They were trying, unsuccessfully, to stifle their laughter.

"Yes, _he_ was here the whole time," Nicholas said, to my utter embarrassment. He pushed off the locker and started walking towards us. How did he hear what I'd just said? I was pretty sure I was whispering. Besides, the hallways are so loud that a sentence gets lost _easily_ among all the mingling voices.

Nudge and Angel were having the time of their lives.

"Seriously, Max. You can call me Nick, or Fang." I didn't even bother to look up to see how wide his smirk had gotten.

Nudge and Angel gave me this look like "Oh my gosh… _Fang_. He's going to let you call him _that_?"

The butterflies in my stomach were now erupting in frenzy. It didn't make things any better. _Dear god, please don't let any of the cheerleaders be watching this._

I tried to maneuver out of the fence that Nudge, Angel, and Nicholas had made around me without touching anyone. There wasn't enough room, and the bare skin of my forearm brushed against _his_. An electric jolt ran up and down my arm like it was wired on sugar and caffeine. I felt all jittery inside. The star student voice inside my head was screaming at me to remove myself from the equation before I did something I might regret.

"Um… I really have to go now. I don't want to be tardy to first hour." I started walking with clipped steps to the end of the hallway. My blush was still there.

If there were enough room, Nudge and Angel would be rolling around on the ground, laughing their hearts out.

"Where're you headed?" Nicholas called out to me.

"Um…" _Quit saying that, you idiot_. "Theater."

"Really? Me, too. Can you show me the way?" Did Nicholas really have to ask _me_ that? _Now?_ Can't he just look at the thing called a _school map_?

I wanted to say no, but then Nudge shoved Nicholas at me and said, "Sure! She wouldn't mind helping a new student find his way around the school. _Would you_, Max?"

I surrendered. There was no easy way to avoid Nudge's matchmaking attempts.

"It's over here," I gestured lamely and started to walk off.

I only turned around once to see if Nudge and Angel were going to head to their classes. They were huddled together, giggling some more. Nudge waved spastically at me, her black fedora almost falling off her head with the sudden, violent movements, and gave me a wink and a thumbs-up. I continued to lead Nicholas to the theater room. _The walk of shame_.

"So, are you still mad at me?" He actually had the _nerve_ to ask that?

"No, Nicholas. I think I'm fine, now." _Because the humiliation of my possible-crush overhearing my friends and I talk about him pretty much overrides everything else. _

"You can call me Nick," he repeated again.

Oh no, the flush is returning…

"No thank you. Nicholas is good," I put my head down, letting my long brown hair form a curtain between us. _Wait, why did I have to say that?_

Nicholas chuckled.

So far, my day was going _great_. I fell on my butt, with my possible-crush watching me. I made him really annoyed about his diary. The aforementioned possible-crush heard every drop of a conversation that involved him and my interest in him. And now, he knows that I have a strange tendency to call him by his full name, which no one else does.

_Thank god Nicholas can't read my mind._

We entered the theater room. Nicholas smiled creepily before putting his neutral mask back on.

_Or could he?_

**A/N: And now things start getting interesting... Authors always love to torment their characters. :)  
Don't forget to review!**


	5. Hornets, Loincloths, and Eyelash Wishes

"Good morning, class." Our theater teacher's voice projected powerfully over all of our heads. She opened her arms wide in a dramatic gesture and lifted her gaze thoughtfully to the wall.

"Good morning," we all chimed back, already bored out of our minds.

"Okay, let's get going!" She clapped her hands together suddenly after a short length of silence. "Take out your scripts and a pencil. Everything else goes on the floor."

There was a collective thud in our classroom as multiple binders and books thudded to the ground. The dust that the janitors had neglected to sweep away the day before puffed up in clouds around our books. Well, the dust was actually made of the dried-out skeletons of ancient cockroaches and fruit flies, but I choose to not dwell on facts like those.

It's better to _pretend_ that things are better than they really are.

We sat in our seats, waiting (not too patiently, either) for the teacher to finish taking attendance. She looked up occasionally to count the heads, the beaded chains of her glasses swinging around. The silence was too good to last for long. Murmurs broke out among the students. The murmurs quickly escalated to a normal conversation pitch. Some idiot decided that flapping just his mouth wasn't enough, and another hornet flew through the air.

"QUIET!" the theater teacher shouted. Her beaded glasses chains wobbled for a bit.

The talking soon subsided. The boy who had thrown the hornet casually reached a foot out, trying to get rid of the incriminating evidence. By now, seven minutes of class had passed. Attendance was not yet done. A script and a pencil sat like prisoners on all our desks.

"Well, I see we have a new student," she smiled at Nicholas, who was sitting behind me.

"We're doing a class play, Nicholas. Right now, we are learning our lines. Here…" she fumbled around on her desk, which was being _slowly_ eaten up by piles of papers, looking for a script, "are the lines. You can read along for now. If you would like a speaking part, tell me, and I'll arrange something for you. If you don't, you'll be a stagehand in the final production."

She didn't wait for Nicholas to respond. She launched right into her lecture for the day.

"Don't be nervous, Nicholas. I know stepping on stage takes a lot of courage. You have to overcome your nerves before you can even stand there, being watched by hundreds of people. Moving around and talking and _gesturing_ and not standing there like a complete _idiot_ takes even more." She directed the last few sentences at the whole class. _Buckle up, today's ride has begun._

"I can assure you that all of those movie stars and public speakers have been nervous at one point or another." The teacher paced around the classroom. Her woolen shawl fluttered in the air behind her. "It's okay to feel nervous. It's a natural reaction, actually. Humans are equipped with an instinct to help up survive, you know, back when we were still running around wearing loincloths in the jungle, heaving stone clubs like maniacs." She started picking up speed now.

The girls in the class ducked their heads down when she got to the part about running around wearing loincloths, blushing. The boys started giggling at our reaction. _Oh dear god, did she really have to go that far?_

"Whenever we encounter a situation that we are _scared_ of, our brain goes on autopilot, telling us to either stay and fight, or run as far away as possible."

"And the loincloth flaps in the breeze. Whee!" the boy that threw the hornet whispered to one of his friends. They laughed even harder.

"You know, like if you saw a bear, you'd be terrified! Like, oh my gosh! There's a bear right there! It's going to eat me! So your brain tells you to do something. You can either try to fight the bear with your awesome ninja skills." The teacher struck the classic "come and get me" fight pose. _Please, don't embarrass yourself anymore, Mrs. White._

The cheerleaders leaned over in their seats to whisper about what our teacher had just said. _Never mind. Too late._

"Or, you can try to run away from the bear, and climb up a tree." Mrs. White ran in slow motion back to the front of the classroom while looking with exaggeration to both sides and behind.

"This is called the 'flight-or-fight' response. We can't find a way to turn it off, but we _can_ find a way to use it to our advantage. Theater is the same as running from a bear. It is an unfamiliar situation, even for trained professionals. Whenever the 'flight-or-fight' response kicks in, a chemical called adrenaline rushes through our bloodstream and takes all of the energy from your digestive system and puts it to your arms and legs, because you need your arms to fight, and your legs to run away. This is why sometimes people get the feeling in their stomachs called 'butterflies'. Your poor tummy feels strange after churning away at all that food you ate, and then having that energy suddenly taken away." Mrs. White rubbed her stomach in a slow circle.

"Is she calling us fat?" one of the cheerleaders whispered to her friend.

Nicholas blew a stream of air through his nose behind me. I'd already figured out that he was good at hiding his emotions from people he wanted to keep them hidden from, so he must be pretty exasperated to do something like sigh.

"So now, your arms and legs have all this _extra_ energy, but when you're on stage, you aren't fighting a bear, and you can't just run off into the wings." Mrs. White looked at the ceiling for a few seconds, leaving us with a moment of precious, pure silence. "Well, I guess you could, but then people would think you're a _weirdo_, and then no one would come to see your play anymore because they told all their friends that you're a _weirdo_."

"And you should know how weirdoes act," the cheerleader said, to snickers from her friends.

Our pencils and scripts still sat, dejected, on our desks. We had five minutes left of class. We hadn't even started to read through the play, let alone _mark_ anything. It had been like this for the past week. We never get around to doing anything with the script because Mrs. White always get distracted, and whenever she starts one of her lectures, there's _no_ stopping her.

"Some people will stand on stage, but they move around constantly. This is called having the 'wiggles and jiggles'. If you're on stage and wiggling around…" she started moving around randomly and twirling her hair. Her beaded glasses chains swung like pendulums. _Tick, tock. Tick, tock._

_Two minutes left. _

Nicholas started tapping his feet on the floor. Some bent over and rustled their papers together, preparing to leave. Mrs. White noticed the noise and broke out of her monologue trance.

"Shhh! Shhh! Shhh!" she shushed us. "Quiet! This is _important_!"

_And the bell rings._

We all charged out of the classroom like it was violently regurgitating us. Theater class is now over.

"Don't forget to bring your scripts tomorrow! We're going to start reading through it!" Mrs. White called after us desperately.

"That's what she said the last few days, too," hornet-boy whispers to his friend.

I roll my eyes and push my way through the door to go to my next class. I knew Nicholas would be close behind me, but I wanted to get away from him for today at least. I didn't want anything else awkward to happen between us. Unfortunately, my _brilliant_ plan didn't work out.

"Where're you headed next?" Nicholas' quiet voice tickled the back of my neck.

"French," I replied.

"Really? Me, too," he sounded strangely smug. I picked up my pace, but he still kept up with me easily.

Then, something hit me. What the heck was someone like Nicholas doing in a theater class and _French_?

Maybe, he wanted to be a costume designer and open up his shop in Paris… A weird image of an older Nicholas next to a creepy mannequin holding pins in his mouth and a measuring tape around looped around his neck popped in my mind. He had a handle bar mustache and slicked-back, glossy black hair. Then, the image changed itself so he was at a photo shoot with the finished costume and a model – me. Nicholas was telling me to "work it", but in French…

_God, my mind is so messed up._

I growled under my breath and lengthened my strides even more. Nicholas still kept up with me, and to make it worse, he chuckled. I was seriously wondering if he could read my mind by now – or hear my thoughts. Scientifically, it _shouldn't_ be possible.

"Is this the way?" Nicholas asked, his gorgeous black eyes looking down at me. Wait, what did I just say? I'm letting myself get distracted. _Mental-slap, mental-slap, mental-slap. _

"Yes, _c'est_," I replied, hoping to throw him off.

"Tres bien. J'espère que nous n'allons pas être en retard." _Darn, I didn't know that much yet._

Nicholas snickered while I tried to decipher what he had just said. I don't know why he was always so mean to me, and yet, insisted on following me everywhere because, by some _odd_ luck, our schedules matched so far.

When we reached the French classroom, I walked over to my usual seat and set my things down. Nicholas stood at the back, waiting for the others to take their seats so he could see which ones were empty. The teacher, Mrs. Ritter, saw him and gave him the papers we were working on. She then went on to explain everything to him, although I doubt he needed it, seeing how much he knew already. The mediocre French skills of my classmates simply cannot compare, nor even mine.

Finally, everyone settled down. The noisy hubbub of the "before-class" time reached an all-time high. I got out my notes.

I knew there were two vacant seats in the room. One was next to me, and the other was right next to the teacher's desk. I'm kind of a loner at school, which explains why the wall is on one side, and an imaginary person on the other. As for the seat by Mrs. Ritter's desk… I don't know when it started, but everyone seemed to think that sitting by the teacher's desk was a kind of punishment, like you're condemning yourself to constant scrutiny. And plus, it isn't as easy to talk to your friends and make hornets if you know the teacher is going to see it immediately.

I wished Nicholas would pick the seat by Mrs. Ritter, against all odds. The chances were slim that he would, since I figured he also knew about _the seat_. I closed my eyes, plucked an eyelash from my eyes, and blew it away.

"Please let him pick the other one," I murmured under my breath.

That was another superstition among us eighth graders. If you know you lost an eyelash, then you would be granted one wish. Once, the idiot hornet-boy who seems to shadow me in almost all my classes (again, for some _odd_ reason) had bravely plucked off twenty or so of his eyelashes, bunched them all up in his fist, and blew them everywhere around the room. Some had disgustingly landed on my desk. I didn't want to touch them, so they sat there to terrorize the next class.

I had never believed in those kinds of things, unless I really needed to. I guess the wish-genie is angry at me for using him whenever I want to, because when I opened my eyes, I saw Nicholas' elbow and his blasted little brown book staring innocuously at me from the corners of my eyes.

I told myself that he didn't want to sit by the teacher, but I had a voice that kept saying to me, "You've just acquired a mysterious, dark, tall, and brown-leather-book-carrying stalker."

**A/N: For those of you who were wondering, when Nicholas told Max, "Tres bien. J'espère que nous n'allons pas être en retard.", the English translation is "Very good. I hope we won't be late." **

**As for hornets... Some people fold these little triangle things and flick them at their friends by using rubber bands. They're supposed to hurt, sting, like a hornet, but usually, they just fall on the ground before they can do any serious damage.**


	6. A French-Speaking Math Genius

Nicholas didn't talk to me for the entire class. He did, however, have to annoyingly flip through his little brown book every few minutes, reminding me again of the enigma shrouding his friends and him. I wanted so badly to know what it was about, but I knew that would get us to the same tense, bristling interaction (or lack of thereof) like the one we had on the bus.

Like I predicted, he kept up with the lesson better than well. I don't think he was even listening to Mrs. Ritter for most of the time, but she didn't seem to mind as long as he took the notes she wrote on the board and repeated phrases when she asked us to. I was seriously wondering how Nicholas of all people came to know French so well, but that's just another puzzle of his that I'll probably never figure out.

When class was over, I walked out of the classroom with Nicholas by my side. I was going to have to start getting used to this weird… _attachment_.

I reached my Math classroom. Few people had the same Math class as me. My only classmates were Angel and Star. We were in a hyper-advanced class that our school didn't offer, so we had to go into a special room every day and video chat with our Math teacher, who taught at a high school nearby. Nudge didn't bother trying to compete with Angel and me, and she really didn't want to have to suffer in the same place with Star. Sometimes, Angel and I wonder if it would be better had we not gone into our current Math class, but right now, I knew it was the only way to get Nicholas off my back.

"Bye," I told him without remorse, reaching for the door.

"What do you mean?" he asked me.

"Um… I have to go to Math." My hand hovered in the air.

Nicholas let his lopsided smile peek through a fraction of an inch again. "Me, too."

"Yeah, so you should go." _This conversation is starting to make me look like an idiot._

"I know," he replied irritatingly.

"Look, if you can't find your classroom, you can consult your school map. I'm sorry, but I can't show you around this hour. I might be late if I left, and I've never gotten a tardy before. I really don't want to break the record today," I clamped my mouth shut when I realized I'd been babbling. I don't know why I had told Nicholas all those things. He is starting to become a major distract-factor in my school life. _You don't like him. You don't like him. You don't like him._

"I get it." But despite what I kept telling myself, I found my pulse quickening whenever he looked down at me with him black pearl eyes.

I didn't respond for a few seconds. Some of the cheerleaders sauntering through the hallways in their highty-tighty yoga pants slowed down to snicker when they saw me, frozen by the door, with Nicholas effectively cutting off my escape to the hallway. _Oh, dear god…_

I turned my head around resolutely and opened the door. I didn't bother to hold it for him, if he – for some _odd_ reason, _again_ – wanted to come in. I didn't look back, but I could still hear his footsteps. They didn't get softer and further away like I hoped. They came closer and closer until Nicholas was standing over the chair positioned next to mine.

"You're in Trigonometry, right?" he asked me. The gold letters of his brown book stared out at me from underneath his books. I didn't look up.

"Yes. How'd you know?" Most of the people in the school knew about Angel, Star, and me being in the "smart Math class", as they called it, but I had no idea where Nicholas had heard it from. I doubted my Mom had told Mrs. Tricott. It wasn't "neighborly" to brag about your own child, even if it was true, so she couldn't have.

"I heard. Word travels quickly in this school," he replied. _Liar._ He hadn't left my side yet all day, so I knew no one had talked to him, let along tell anything like me being in the class I am.

I mentally zoomed in on his brown book, wondering if it had anything to do with it. Nicholas seemed to realize what he had just said couldn't possibly be the truth, and he pushed his book further back into his pile of papers so the title was hidden from view. Nicholas lied a lot, as much as I could see. First, what he had told me about the book being his diary, which I _knew_ wasn't true based on the conversation he had with Iggy and Lissa this morning, and now, how he knew which classes I take.

When he saw that I wasn't going to talk anymore, he sat down. He hadn't exactly chosen the best place. There were only three chair set up at the rectangular table. I always sat in the middle, to keep the rivals Angel and Star apart from each other. They were simply too combustible when they were next to each other. Nicholas, however, took one of those seats – the one that was bordered by the wall on the other side – which meant that either Angel or Star was going to have to pull up a chair next to the other. This wasn't going to turn out to be the greatest arrangement.

Angel soon entered, wearing her customary blue jacket. Her eyes widened when she saw Nicholas sitting next to me. Then, she smiled and sat down in the remaining seat. Her blonde hair was practically glowing with excitement. I rolled my eyes and leaned over so Nicholas wouldn't hear us.

"It's not what you think," I whispered.

"Oh my gosh, Max! This is amazing! But that's not really what I wanted to ask you about," Angel said, surprising me.

"Then what is it?" I asked.

"Um… What is _he_ doing in our class?"

_Nicholas_. I wanted to say, but decided against it because it would only make Angel doubt the truth of the first thing I told her. Angel's question, though, was something I had been wondering about myself.

Star, at that moment, walked in. The first her eyes went to was the dark lump in her usual seat.

"What is _he_ doing here?" She voiced the question both Angel and me were afraid to ask. Leave it to Star to blurt things out… And Nudge, if she were here.

The supervisor turned on the camera and adjusted the screen so we could see what the teacher was doing. Angel dutifully got out her notes and her blue calculator. Star, once she realized there wasn't a seat left for her, walked across to pick a chair off the stack and sat it as far away from Angel as she could. She sat down in a huff, already getting in a bad mood. Then, Star took out her notes, which had bubbly stars and hearts doodled over it, and her shockingly pink calculator.

"I'm here for the same reason you are," Nicholas closed his brown book, which he had been leafing through again, and replied quietly. His patronizing smile was gone, now. His usual emotionless wall was back up. I was starting to wonder if he was a little schizophrenic. He was talkative and urgent around his friends, plain weird and sarcastic around me, and placid around strangers.

"What's your name?" Star drawled out, stretching the syllables.

"Nick," he replied.

Now that I've thought about it, my schizophrenia theory seemed to fit. He had three different personalities, and three different names/nicknames to go along with them. Thinking about that made me remember Gollum. Suddenly, Nicholas' head was perched on top of Gollum's body and he was rasping with foam dribbling out of his mouth, clutching his brown book, "My precious. My _precious_."

_Like I've said before: My mind must be _really_ messed up._

"Nick," Star repeated his name quietly to himself. "I'm Star." She made her voice one of disdain when she introduced us, "And this is _Angel_ and _Max_."

_Can words be coated be poison, because hers were?_

"I know," Nick said, still quiet as ever.

Star looked almost offended. She quickly drew her head back and scrunched her mouth up into a tight frown like, "_Well_."

_Careful, Star. Your face might freeze like that._

We began the lesson. Angel and I struggled with some of the problems. Star was almost completely lost among all the different triangles. Nicholas, on the other hand, whizzed through them like he had done a thousand of them before.

_Great, now my potential-crush is not only a first-class French student, but also a math genius._

Angel was impressed by his skills. And by impressed, I mean she tried harder than ever to finish the problems first.

Her face set in one of utter concentration – the study-face, as Nudge and I call it. Angel tightened her grip on her pencil and focused her tunnel vision only on the problems in front of her. She muttered numbers and laws to herself, greatly annoying Star and me. Every time she finished one, she jerked her head up quickly – furtively – to see if Nicholas was done or not yet. Then, she'd nod it back down just as violently and attack the next problem.

Nicholas looked relaxed, unhurried. In fact, I think he purposely slowed down when he was what Angel was doing. He may not show any of his emotions, but he was still a nice person. I know if it was Star, she would have never relinquished her pace for anyone, even if that person wasn't her biggest rival.

I also took homework time easily, checking my answers before moving on to the next problem. I had plenty of time to observe things around me, like how Star was filling her notes up with even more doodles, but they were all hearts this time, and how Nicholas had moved his brown book to his lap and constantly had his right hand on it.

This latter observation also meant that Nicholas was left-handed, and since I was right-handed, our elbows bumped into one another's occasionally, sending more electric shocks down my arm.

I heard Mrs. Hutkins' voice in my head, "Remember, it is the valence electrons that are the most important during a chemical reaction."

I tried to not show that I could literally feel sparks flying between us, but I knew I wasn't doing too well, because Nicholas once glanced up and gave me another one of his heartbreaking grins.

_Whoa, whoa, whoa. Back it up. _What_ did I just say?_

Ten minutes before the end of class, despite his efforts to slow down, Nicholas was finished with his homework. Angel was growing madder and madder by the second, still laboring over hers. She was stuck on one particularly difficult problem. She kept going over her steps in a soft whisper. Star had given up on her homework, instead trying to cram some science into her head for the pop quizzes that Mrs. Hutkins gave us spontaneously. I had already packed up my things. I wanted to take a short break before tackling P.E. next hour.

"Do you need help, Angel?" Nicholas whispered across the table.

Angel glowered. Her face instantly clouded over at the word "help". "No. I'm fine."

Nicholas rocked back like he had been slapped. Angel's brusque responses do that to people sometimes, especially when they don't know her too well yet. Nicholas went back to reading his brown book.

Angel looked at the problem some more, sending piercing daggers through the taunting triangles.

_Wait for it…_

When she had enough of trying to pummel the problem into obeying her, she took out her abused pink eraser – the _eraser-of-doom_.

While she exercised her arm, Nicholas whispered to me so softly that I shouldn't have heard what he was saying, "Is she okay?"

I glanced worriedly over at Angel to see if she had heard what Nicholas asked me. She gave no indication that a syllable had been caught, so I matched Nicholas' tone and said, "She's just frustrated."

"With what?" Nicholas asked, amused.

I sighed. Star turned her head, but went back to cramming. "She doesn't like it when people do things better than her, especially if she doesn't know you and you're not her friend."

Angel still wasn't hearing anything we were saying.

"Oh, okay."

"What? Why?" I was confused by Nicholas' sudden benevolence.

"I need to get on her good side," was his vague answer.

I noticed something right then. He didn't say want.

Nicholas continued to finger his brown leather book. The gold letters reflected the light like glinting knives. I seemed to be almost _pulled_ to the book. _Compelled_ to know the secrets that must lie within.

He said _need_.


	7. The Half Court Shot

I knew as soon as it was true that Nicholas was going to be in Trigonometry that there would be escaping him and our confounded matching schedules for the rest of the day – and the rest of the school year. There are only three people in our Math class – four including Nicholas – so the school didn't feel like being creative and gave us all the same schedule. All of my classes matched Angel and Star's, except for our elective because Angel and Star didn't feel like becoming a drama diva or learning to speak the language of the beret-wearing folks. They take orchestra and Spanish instead, always opting for more _practical_ classes. Me, I just wanted to have some fun for my first two hours.

It was no surprise, then, when Nicholas flanked my side again after Math was over. Angel was walking beside me on the other like we had always done. Star was brooding about something by herself. Thankfully, she was usually quieter when she didn't have the unanimous back up of her posse.

Angel looked like she was going to burst with questions. She kept glancing over at me and Nicholas like she had found out a big, huge secret. Angel did, however, have the good sense to keep her mouth closed. It would've been quite embarrassing for the second time today if she had unloaded her curiosity by asking me probing questions.

I, too, had so many questions buzzing around my head that I wouldn't know which one to voice first if I was given the opportunity to ask them. It seemed like Nicholas and his two friends were clairvoyant – about my fall earlier this morning and now the order of my classes and which ones they were. Nicholas' infuriating brown leather book also flashed through my mind. I should have been creeped out about the title of his book, seeing as how it was the name I had given myself because my real one was utterly humiliating, but I found myself intrigued by it instead. I had no clue why Nicholas followed me around like he was suddenly my best friend, and then repelled me when I breached any of the subjects I mentioned above. And, there was the fact that he lied to me – several times already.

And: _The Book_.

I'm pretty sure that Iggy, Lissa, and he didn't want me to have heard that conversation, which only made me more confused.

Nicholas didn't talk to me as the three of us walked to P.E. I wanted to punch him and demand why he was always strange like this and keeping so many secrets, but I didn't.

When we got to the locker rooms, Angel and I branched off to the girls' side and Nicholas lingered by the entrance to the boys' side. This would probably be the only time I could fully get him out my mind.

"He looks like he doesn't want to leave your side," Angel giggled under her breath.

"Yeah, but _that_ will be awkward," I rolled my eyes and entered the locker room.

"Has he been following you around like that all morning? You look like you're annoyed with him," Angel waited in anticipation of my answer.

"Um… Yes," I replied, biting my lower lip anxiously.

"_Yes_ to what? Following you around or you being annoyed?" Angel was hanging on to my every word.

"What do you think? Both," I said, exhaling dramatically.

"Oh my gosh! Are you friends now?" Angel took in a sharp intake of breath.

"I don't think so," I said truthfully. I don't know what Nicholas wants with me, and I won't until he starts opening up and talking.

"Let me guess, _Nicholas_ asked you out, didn't he?" Angel was grinning from ear to ear.

I blushed again. _Why do I have to keep doing that?_ "No, he didn't."

"You're lying. You guys would perfect! You even live in the same neighborhood!" Angel's eyes were shining with fantasies of me and Nicholas on our wedding day. She takes things way too seriously like that.

"No, I'm not. And why would you even think that?" I pulled my locker open and stuffed my stuff inside. _Now I know why it's called _stuff_…_

"You can't tell? Seriously?" Angel rolled her head to one side in disbelief.

"Seriously," I said.

"Are you blind, Max?" She was having way too much fun stringing me out like this.

"You should know by _now_ that I have over-perfect vision."

"No, not like that. Like… You seriously don't see?" Angel _had_ to get clarification from me again.

"No. I _seriously_ don't see," I emphasized every word.

Angel giggled, hiding her smile behind her hands.

"Come on, tell me," I was almost whining by now.

Angel was caught in a fit of chortles. _Yum. Love those tiny chocolate chip cookies._

"_An-gel_." Okay, now I _am_ whining.

"Nudge and I think…" The rest of her sentence died off amidst her laugher.

"Think what?" I am now annoyed. If there were Chortles by me right now, I'd be saying, "Tiny chocolate chip cookies, feel my wrath." _Wait, hold on. What the heck am I thinking?_

"We think that…" More laughter. Is there an off button on Angel, I wonder?

Angel whispered the last three words so quietly that even I, with my amazing hearing, had to strain to hear it. "He _likes_ you." More giggles followed this _shocking_ revelation. _Ha, ha, ha. Do you _see_ me laughing, Angel?_

I slammed my forehead into my pile of books. Angel and Nudge are always quick to judge when it comes to their friends' love lives, because none of us really have one. This _thing_, whatever the _thing_ is, between Nicholas and me is the second time they can play matchmaker. The _first_ time was when Nudge confessed to us that she had a crush on Yugi from Yugi-oh when she was five. I can kind of see it, actually. Yugi's hair is _pretty_ awesome…

I hate to spoil their fun, but I have to demolish this futile hope before it gets too far – like if Nudge decided to set us up on a blind date. "Angel, I don't think so."

"Well, do you like him?" she was still recovering from her giggle attack.

"I think we've already had this discussion," I am now trying to steer us _away_ from this subject.

"I think _you're_ lying, too," Angel said matter-of-factly. Behind her, I saw some of the cheerleaders come in. I gestured to Angel for her to quiet down, because the _last_ thing I want is for the popular-s to get wind of Nicholas' interest of lack of interest in me and my feelings or lack of feeling towards him.

"I wasn't kidding when I said I didn't like him," I hissed through my teeth as quietly as I could.

"That'll change," Angel said, giving me a toothy grin. _Okay, now I'm scared._

"Angel, please. Let's just forget about this, okay? We need to get changed for P.E." I tried to be diplomatic.

"And plus, why else would _Nicholas_ always be beside you? He wants to get to know you better. You should open up some more," Angel clearly had not heard a single word of what I had just said.

"Keep on going like that, and _you're_ going to get to know my _fist_," I said, not too nicely, either.

Angel pulled back and looked at me. "Okay. Fine. _Sheesh._ I'm just saying it might be fun."

"Really, because it sounded more like you were trying to set us up," I cocked one hand on my hip and raised one eyebrow.

Angel, thank god, stopped pestering me on the subject. We dressed out for P.E. and went back out into the gymnasium. We were some of the last ones out.

"Girls, grab a basketball. We're doing dribbling and shooting exercises right now," our coach said to us.

He towered over us, even though Angel and I were already some of the tallest girls in our grade. His voice shook the air around it like thunder. I'd say Coach is very intimidating – an impressive presence.

Angel and I nodded, but inwardly, I groaned. We walked to the cart holding all the basketballs and picked the last two out of the bin. Angel held hers like it was infected. I was inspecting mine for any major deformities. The last balls in the cart are always the worst. Sometimes, they don't bounce. Other times, there are huge bubbles protruding out the side.

The basketball unit is always no fun for Angel. It's like target practice for most of the boys in our P.E. class, with Angel being the bull's-eye. I don't like it either, but I have the will and skill to return any "misjudged" dribbles, passes, or shots. And, not to brag, but I have a _mean_ throwing arm.

Angel and I searched the gym for Nudge, who was in the same hour P.E. class as us. When we found her, we started for her corner. _Forty-five minutes of dodging balls and dribbling, here we come. Whopee._

Nicholas' two friends were also in our gym class. The three of them were behind Angel and me. Nicholas was holding his ball in the crook of his elbow, talking to them. Iggy and Lissa were bent over his little brown book. _That cursed little brown book… Grrr._

Because I have extraordinary hearing, my ears sniffed out a wispy trail of sound wafting through the air. It was hornet-boy, predictably.

"Hey, dude. Watch me make this half-court shot."

I turned my head to see the source of the sound. Hornet-boy was on the other end of the gym, preparing to throw his ball as far as he could. His friend was nodding along, looking like a doofus. Hornet-boy grinned at his friend's approval and leaned back, ready to unleash his terror. I mentally drew a line of his trajectory. If the ball behaved as I thought it would, it would land right in our vicinity.

"Angel, duck!" I yelled as soon as the ball left his arms.

Angel whipped her head around to look at me, but she didn't question my warning. She dropped her head down quickly. I followed her to a crouching position on the floor.

Nicholas turned around at my sudden exclamation, but he did not heed my warning. I saw the ball fly through the air like it was in slow motion. Nicholas was still stunned by my shout and stood there like the best target in the world. The ball smacked right into his face. Nicholas let out a tiny, puffed _oof_.

Angel and I got up, the imminent danger over. I narrowed my eyes at hornet-boy. Was he _really_ trying to make a half-court shot, because if Angel and I hadn't ducked, then it would have been one of us with the basketball's handprint on our face instead of the unfortunate Nicholas?

Hornet-boy smiled sadistically and actually laughed. His friend followed suit. They gave each other high-fives. I wanted to chuck my ball at them and give them a taste of their own medicine, but instead I held out a hand to Nicholas, who was on the ground on one knee. Now, it was like this morning, except the roles had been reversed.

"Are you okay?" I asked, genuinely concerned.

Nicholas rubbed the side of his face that got punched by the basketball and muttered, "I'm fine."

"Does it hurt?" Angel _had_ to ask.

Nicholas removed his hand and glared at her. He was a storm cloud – a roiling, boiling storm cloud.

Angel backed away and ran as fast she could over to Nudge's corner. Coach walked lazily over to the site of incident.

"You alright?" he asked in that deep, frightening voice of his.

A nasty purple and green bruise was starting to show up on Nicholas' face, faster than I thought was possible, but he nodded and stood up. I noticed again that he had one hand on his brown book. _A talisman for pain, perhaps?_

"You can go use the restroom, clean up, calm down," Coach was already moving away again, going back to talk to with his fellow coaches.

Nicholas kept standing there like a rock until Coach had walked away. Then, he turned around to face me. I forced myself to look at him, even though I really didn't want to stare at his grotesque bruise. It's not that things like that make me queasy. In fact, I enjoy showing Angel various bruises that I acquire and watching her grossed-out expression. It's because I thought he might take offense if I looked somewhere else. Nicholas seemed like the "I'm a tough guy" sort of person.

"How did you know?" he asked in an accusing tone.

"Know what?" I didn't know what he was talking about.

"That _he_ was going to pitch the ball," Nicholas snarled when he said "he". Note to self: your potential-crush can hold a grudge.

"I heard him talking," I said simply.

"From all the way over here?" Nicholas cocked an eyebrow.

"Yeah. I have pretty good hearing," I said in a _duh_ tone.

Iggy and Lissa's eyes grew exponentially larger. Nicholas didn't bat a lash.

He smirked and lowered his voice so only _we_ could hear. "And you didn't bother warning me?"

I shifted uncomfortably from foot to foot. _First Angel and Nudge, now him, too?_

"Well, you looked busy," I said lamely.

Nicholas' smirk widened, like it was trying to bridge one side of face to the other. " 'S okay."

"Um… I have to go now," I said.

I left without turning back. Nicholas' hand was still resting on his brown book.

The rest of P.E. went peacefully. Whenever Nudge and Angel tried to bring up Nicholas again, I silenced them with a deadly glare. We had plenty of fun talking about other things and mindless dribbling our balls.

We changed back into our school clothes when Coach blew his whistle, signifying the end of P.E. When we walked out of the locker room, Nicholas, Iggy, and Lissa were already at the door to the gymnasium. They talked quickly, this time making sure to be quiet enough that I couldn't hear them. Nicholas was still clutching his brown book. Then, Iggy and Lissa left. Nicholas loitered by the exit door, waiting for me.

I wondered how strange our group must look in the hallway – Angel, Nudge, Nicholas, and me. It's not every day that you see a boy with the uncool, freak show group, especially not a hot boy. _Wait, what? Did I just admit that? Oh god, this is bad. _Bad_…_

Nudge and Angel still looked like they were about bounce off the walls with excitement, but they smartly kept their mouths closed. Nicholas didn't talk to me, either. And so went another silent walk to class, this time, Comm. Arts.

Nicholas had swept his long bangs over the side of his face that got hit with the ball, so I couldn't see if the bruise was still there or not. Once or twice, he turned his head enough that I could see a sliver of his cheek peeking out from under his hair. I was pretty sure that it had been purple in the gym, but now, it was just like normal – like nothing even happened.

_What the heck?_

A bruise takes days, sometimes weeks to go away, not minutes. What was going on with Nicholas? I glanced down at his hands. Sure enough, they were gripping his book like talons.

He caught me staring at him in question and said so quietly I thought it was another transient breeze, "I heal fast. _Told_ you I'm fine."

**A/N: Careful there, Angel, or you might break your laughing box. (Yes, SpongeBob is awesome.) ;)**

**And don't forget to review! That's all, folks! (And Bugs Bunny, too.)**


	8. And Now, For My Next Magic Trick

When we went into the Comm. Arts room, everyone was loud and things were chaotic – as usual. Mrs. Merrill, the teacher, was sitting at her desk, scrutinizing her computer screen. Her whiting hair was twisted into her standard tight bun at the nape of her neck. Her hands trembled slightly with her age as they maneuvered the mouse over the desk.

I wanted to rid myself of Nicholas, so I quickly went to a desk in the corner and motioned for Angel and Nudge to sit around me. It worked this time. I was safe from the strange ways of Nicholas for this class at least.

I think Nicholas finally realized how weird he was being, because he went sat at the other end of the room without even looking at me, giving me space. Iggy came into the class, loudly smacking on his gum. He walked over to Nicholas, to talk again. He forgot to be extra quiet this time. _Heh, heh, heh…_

"Dude, what're you doing?" he asked.

"What do you mean?" Nicholas asked calmly.

"Don't you think _she's_ going to weirded out?" Iggy said. I knew who they were talking about. _Why are they always talking about me?_

"I have to know if she's _the one_," Nicholas said reverently.

"Do you?" Iggy dropped his voice a notch lower. I had to strain a little bit to hear.

"So far, she fits, but I think she's onto us," Nicholas said. _Darn right, I am._

Iggy looked at Nicholas' disappearing bruise and gaped. "Dude, how're you gonna explain _that_?"

"I told her I'm a fast healer," Nicholas sat down. He began to leaf through his brown book with a possessed fervor.

"She buy it?" Iggy asked.

"I don't know. She hardly ever talks to me." _That's because _you_ always insist on being the silent type._

"She's gonna start guessing sooner or later," Iggy said portentously.

"I'm thinking about telling her," Nicholas said suddenly. _Yes, yes, yes! Tell me what all these strange mysteries are about!_

"Max, are you okay?" Nudge interrupted my eavesdropping session.

"Huh, what?" I turned to look at her.

"You're about to fall out of your chair," she said, smiling.

I glanced down and realized that she was right. I had been focusing everything on listening in to Nicholas and Iggy's conversation that I hadn't noticed I was slowly edging to the far edge of my seat. I was sitting precariously on an edge (literally, the _edge_) of my chair. If Nudge hadn't warned me, I would've fallen over within the next few seconds.

"Oh. Thanks," I scooted into the safety of my whole seat.

"This is about _Nicholas_, isn't it?" Nudge said with a knowing smile. _Good grief. Can't I ever catch a break?_

"Um…" I stalled. I kept one ear trained on Nicholas and Iggy.

"Fang, you _have_ to be sure. You remember what happened with the _other_ one, don't you?" Iggy said with the first hint of seriousness.

I shuddered, wondering what had happened to the _other_ one.

_What am I getting myself into?_

"Don't worry, Iggy. I'm going to observe some more," Nicholas assured him. Great, this means _more_ of stalker-Nicholas.

"Fang…" Iggy began, but was abruptly cut off by Mrs. Merrill.

"Please take you seat, Mr. …" she trailed off, not knowing Iggy's name yet.

"The Ig-master!" Iggy said jokingly.

"I'm sure that cannot possibly be your real, respectable name," Mrs. Merrill stood up from her seat and started walking over to Iggy. She was only five-one, but she could make even the toughest jock shudder in the wake of her terror. There is a running joke among the student body that her extra inch made all the difference.

"Sure, it is," Iggy grinned.

Mrs. Merrill looked down at the attendance sheet she held in her hands and looked back up to Iggy. "Mr. _Isaac_, please take your seat!"

"Alright," Iggy turned around to walk to one of the empty seats in the back of the classroom. He exaggerated the smacking, sucking sounds he made while chewing his gum. _Oh no…_

"Mr. Isaac, spit out your gum! There is to be _no_ gum-chewing in my classroom!" Mrs. Merrill asserted her voice.

Iggy turned around to look at Mrs. Merrill and almost laughed. "What do you want me to do? Take my seat or spit out my gum?"

Mrs. Merrill looked extremely exasperated. "Mr. Isaac, I understand you are a new student, but you must understand that there are rules in my classroom. Rules that I _will_ have every single student in my room abide by, too.

"Rule number one: You are to take your seat immediately upon setting foot in this room. No horseplay or tomfoolery. No exceptions. If you wish to use the restroom, you will wait until the bell rings and then you will ask me for permission. It seems like most of you need to be reminded of this as well," she looked over her glasses at the rest of the stunned, silent class.

"Rule number two: There is absolutely no gum in my class. It is a distraction to your creative and analytical thinking in my opinion. It interferes with the writing process, and distracts others if they are reading. Furthermore, some students are highly irresponsible, and the gum is squashed into my carpet, which I then have to clean up. I will not be your maid. I am your teacher. If you wish to have a maid, then you have leave to be expelled from school and go home to your parents.

"Rule number three: You must be polite at all times in my class. 'Yes, m'am.', and 'No, m'am.'; 'Yes, sir.', and 'No, sir.' When I call your name, whether it is for attendance purposes or otherwise, you will reply with, 'Yes, m'am.' Understood, Mr. Isaac?" Mrs. Merrill turned her gaze back to Iggy.

"Yes, m'am," he said in a mocking tone.

"Good, Mr. Isaac. Please go now and spit out your gum. Then, take your seat. We have a boatload of stuff to do today and very little time with which to do it in," Mrs. Merrill glanced around the room, checking off names as she did the headcount.

"Wow, he has some nerve!" Nudge whispered to me.

"Miss Alexandria, there is to be no talking," Mrs. Merrill warned Nudge.

She continued taking attendance. Iggy got out of his seat the instant he was in it to walk over to the pencil sharpener.

"Mr. Isaac, please _take your_ _seat_," Mrs. Merrill looked at Iggy with a storm brewing behind her glasses.

"But I've got to sharpen my pencil," Iggy said defensively.

"You do not _know_ if we are going to use our pencils today yet. I will _inform_ you when we need to use them. _Then_, you may sharpen your pencil," Mrs. Merrill sounded like she was trying to explain algebra to a three-year-old.

"But…" Iggy almost whined.

"No exceptions," Mrs. Merrill was adamant. "Please, _take your seat_." She emphasized each and every word.

Iggy walked back to his seat with his head hung in a dramatic expression of defeat. I could still see in his eyes, though, that he wasn't about to give up.

"Yes, m'am," he said.

"Good. I see you understand, now," Mrs. Merrill was pleased with herself. She didn't even know the _half_ of it, yet.

"Max," she called out.

"Yes, m'am," I replied.

"Angel."

"Yes, m'am," Angel piped up.

"Nudge." Every time Mrs. Merrill called out Nudge's nickname, she twisted her face into a mask of disdain. She didn't think that it was _respectable_. Nudge, however, _hated_ her real name. "It's just not me," she told Angel and me. We agree.

"_Here_," Nudge said. She fixed her black fedora on her head so it sat at an angle.

Mrs. Merrill didn't bother correcting her. Nudge had been openly defying Mrs. Merrill's "response etiquette" for the whole year. She did remind Nudge for the first couple of weeks, but after she saw it was to no avail, she just gave up.

"Hey, why doesn't she have to say 'Yes, m'am.'?" Iggy pointed out accusingly.

Mrs. Merrill didn't bother explaining to him. "Mr. Isaac, you would do _well_ to keep your mouth in a closed and locked position."

"You didn't answer my question," Iggy said. Nicholas rolled his eyes.

"Mr. Isaac," Mrs. Merrill said in a tone that I can only describe as spiky.

"Okay, okay. Sheesh," Iggy leaned back in his chair.

Mrs. Merrill went through some more names. Thankfully, hornet-boy wasn't in my Comm. Arts class. Finally, she came to Nicholas and Iggy's names.

"Nicholas Tricott?" she looked over the room.

Nudge wiggled her eyebrows at me and tapped my calf with her foot. I rolled my eyes like, "Give me a break."

Nicholas raised his hand. "Yes, m'am."

Mrs. Merrill jumped a little at the direction his voice came from. I could see why. Nicholas seemed to have a talent for camouflaging himself into his surroundings. It will certainly come in handy. It is always good to fly under the radar – inconspicuous.

Mrs. Merrill almost sighed with relief that at least one of her new students would follow her idiosyncratic rules. But then, her face dropped slightly when she called Iggy's name.

"Mr. Isaac."

Iggy responded cheekily, "If she doesn't have to say it, then I don't neither."

"Either," Mrs. Merrill corrected him with a sigh.

"Okay, let's get started. We're moving into a new unit today – Edgar Allan Poe. We are going to be reading his poems, short stories, and today, we'll be watching a director's rendition of one of his most well-known short stories, _The Fall of the House of Usher_," she said.

Once our classmates processed what "watching a director's rendition" actually means, they cheered. "Yay! We're gonna watch a movie!"

"Gonna is not a word," Mrs. Merrill said to all of us. "Please refrain from using slang terms while you are in Communication Arts."

It took Mrs. Merrill several minutes to get the movie into the T.V. The room erupted again into noise, punctuated by several, "There will be no talking in this class!" s from Mrs. Merrill. Nicholas stayed quiet the whole time, consulting his little brown book.

Mrs. Merrill noticed what he was doing and said to the class, "Look at Nicholas, everyone. He is quiet and reading a book. While I'm trying to fix the DVD, why don't you all do some silent reading?"

"You can call me Nick, m'am," Nicholas said.

"Or Fang. We all call him _Fang_," Iggy said, unhelpful.

Nudge tapped my calf again. I knocked her foot aside, telling her to cut it out without saying anything.

Mrs. Merrill looked taken aback. She must be wondering: _What kind of name is that? That is certainly not a respectable name._

"Alright. Nick, then. He's setting an excellent example," she said.

After some grumbling, the class got out their reading books, but they had wasted so much time doing it that they had barely cracked open the cover, when Mrs. Merrill turned out the lights and started the movie. There was a collective sigh of relief and some, "Yes!" s from our classmates. Another reading session – escaped.

The movie had been playing for some time. We were at the part where the bride-to-be had just been locked prematurely into her coffin. Two of the main characters went downstairs to unlock her, but when they got there, the coffin was empty. Suspenseful music was playing. I got goose bumps up and down my arms. Suddenly, the girl appeared behind them with a vengeful, cruel, insane, and rabid look on her face. Lightning cracked in the distance. We all jumped.

Iggy yawned and said, breaking the tension, "And now, for my next magic trick…"

Mrs. Merrill glared at him and said to him for what was possibly the tenth time that day, "_Mr. Isaac_, there will be _no_ talking in my class."

**A/N: I really want to make this the best possible for you guys, so if you spot any spelling/grammar errors, or if you have a suggestion, let me know.**

**Folding Turtles out! ;)**


	9. The Eye War

"Do you think watching _The Fall of the House of Usher_ is a total coincidence or an omen?" Nudge had to raise her voice to be heard over everyone else in the cafeteria.

The rest of Comm. Arts went by smoothly. Nothing out of the ordinary happened. Iggy kept on making snide commentary throughout the half of the movie that we got through, much to the exasperation of Mrs. Merrill. Eventually, she stopped reminding him to stay quiet, froze the screen, and went on her computer to do whatever. I think I saw Nicholas snicker once at something Iggy said, but I couldn't be sure since the room was so dark.

"What do you mean?" I asked.

"Well, like Nick moves in, and then we start the Edgar Allan Poe unit, and then we're watching a movie about a creepy premature burial…" Nudge drifted off, looking for our table among the sea of students.

"We were bound to go through the unit anyway," I said matter-of-factly.

"Yeah, but Nick's all like the _'Prince of Darkness'_, and Poe is the creep-master, and you're pretty good with his stuff," Nudge said, wiggling her fingers like they were the tentacles of a nightmarish monster.

"Actually, he's the horror-master," I corrected her.

"See, you even know that," Nudge proved her point.

"Hey! They took our table again!" Angel exclaimed, breaking Nudge's vague, strange conversation with me.

"What!" Nudge almost jumped up.

Angel pointed, and Nudge followed her finger to our now-occupied table. A group of jocks sat there, laughing their snot out and punching each other like fools. A few hornets flew around, too. The jocks' tables wouldn't be complete without those pesky paper creations.

Our other friends arrived in the cafeteria. We walked to meet each other. I could tell they weren't happy about our table-less state of affairs.

"So, where do you want to sit?" Nudge asked them.

If we kept on standing in the middle of the cafeteria for much longer, it would attract way too much attention. In fact, I could already feel the stares coming…

"Well, there's a table back there," one of our friends pointed at an empty, dejected table in the corner.

"Darn it! We have to go last now!" Nudge said when she saw where it was.

We sat down there anyway. There was nowhere else to go. Nudge was practically fuming as she took off her fedora and laid it on top of her green lunchbox like she always did before lunch. My stomach growled, which did not make things any better. I seemed to need a lot of food every day, and fast, too, or I got hungry.

"Why do they _always_ have to go first?" Nudge spat vehemently. "They can deal with waiting just like the rest of us!"

Every day, the principals called a different table to go first to get their food. Today was supposed to be our turn. But then, the jocks that changed tables every day and terrorized the weaker ones of the student body just so they could go first every day took our spot, and now we had to go last.

It wasn't like there was a rule against changing tables. It's just that most people sat at the same table every day, so it becomes rude if you take someone else's table. I guess you could call it a hidden rule.

Nudge was still ranting. "They think they're _so_ special because they can flaunt their mud-stained football jerseys in everyone's faces. They're _not_ special at all! Just because they can play their _stupid_ sports doesn't mean they can make the rest of us _starve_!"

"Nudge, we'll get it back tomorrow. They'll leave," Angel tried to calm her down.

"Yeah, but then we'll be last _again_! And they'll be off chasing some other nerds like _us_ out, and they'll be _first_!" Nudge unzipped her lunchbox with fervor.

"We're not gonna _starve_. We're still gonna eat," Angel's attempts were futile. It was better to let Nudge blow all her steam off until she was empty.

"Darn football jocks." Nudge scowled. Well, she used a worse word, but I don't want to repeat it here.

Angel got quiet and opened up her book. She began to read. I rubbed my hands together under the table, trying to warm then up, while my stomach screamed at me to get food.

Nudge got out her lunch and she sighed. "Oh, not again. Mom, I've told you a million times that I hate turkey baloney."

I stole a peek at her sandwich. It was one single piece of the hated meat between two pieces of bread. There was nothing else. _My, that's a small lunch._

"And now, I will attempt to make myself full on two pieces of bread," Nudge announced like she was a magician's assistant.

The thought reminded me of Iggy, and then _Nicholas_.

"I get really ticked off if I'm not full, and you give me this?" Nudge held up her sandwich and flapped it around. It flopped down despondently and vomited the piece of meat out. The pink slice of turkey landed on the table with a sticky, slurping sound.

Maybe Nudge was right. Maybe Nicholas and the Poe unit really will bring us our demise. But then, why do I find myself drawn to him and his mysteries?

_Oh snap. I've admitted it. This is bad. _

_Focus, Max. Don't let yourself get sidetracked by a boy, even if he has that _adorable_ crooked smile. _

_No, no, no. Mental-slap, mental-slap, mental-slap. _

_Don't think that. Focus, focus, _focus_._

"Max, are you okay?" Angel startled me out of my inner thoughts.

I jumped. "Huh? Oh, yeah. I'm fine."

"Because you were just slapping your forehead a few seconds ago," Nudge said with concern.

"I was?" Clearly, my mind can't make the distinction between totally mental and the physical world.

"Uh huh," Angel and Nudge said in sync. They nodded their heads slowly, like if they did anything too drastic, then I would pitch myself off the side of a cliff.

"Oh. That… I was just tied up in some of my own thoughts," I said with a smile.

_Please, don't ask what I was thinking about. Please, please, _please_._

"What kind of thoughts?" Angel asked, always the curious one.

_Really, is it too much to grant a girl a simple wish like that?_

"It's about _Nicholas_, isn't it?" Nudge grinned, her disgusting lunch all but forgotten amidst my juicy gossip. She still had to emphasize his name.

"What's about me?" Nicholas said from behind us.

_Oh god. Why does he have to keep showing up like this? Without warning of any kind? Nicholas: the great disappearing magician._

"Hi, can we sit here? We came in kind of late, and we don't know anyone else," Lissa explained, a huge smile plastered to her face.

"Sure! You're welcome any time!" Nudge exclaimed happily, keeping one eye on me and the other on the threesome. _She is really going to keep on playing matchmaker, isn't she?_

"Thanks. We appreciate that. I'm Lissa, and this is Iggy and Nick," she introduced herself to us.

Nudge shot me a look that was too conspicuous, so I shot her one back to tell her to quit. She raised her eyebrows and moved her eyes in Nicholas' direction. I locked eyes with her and made my expression as stern as possible.

Angel decided to join in and looked from one to the other. Her eyes smiled when she caught on to what Nudge was trying to say to me, and she nodded faintly. I narrowed my eyes like, "Don't even think about it." Angel and Nudge rolled their eyes and darted their eyes quickly three times to Nicholas.

Our other friends stared at us curiously. Some cocked an eyebrow.

I glanced at Nicholas, making Nudge and Angel follow my gaze. I was trying to tell them to quit being rude and put an end to this entire silent eye war thing that we had going. They snickered and darted their eyes again. Sooner or later, Lissa, Iggy, or Nicholas was going to notice what we were doing.

"What are you guys doing?" Iggy looked from one to the other, temporarily stopping our silent war.

"Nothing," Angel said innocently. "You can sit down."

"Thanks," Lissa said again.

Iggy made a face like, "Weirdoes…"

Nicholas stepped over the seat to get in. He was sitting right next to me.

Angel and Nudge's eyes widened like, "Oh my gosh! He _voluntarily_ sat by _you_! This is _huge_!"

I rolled my eyes again, trying to tell them that it was no big deal, but they giggled anyway.

"Is anyone gonna tell me what's going on?" Iggy said.

All he got in response were more giggles.

I looked at Nicholas' books. He still had his little brown book with him. He wasn't clutching it like his life depended on it, though. That was an improvement.

I didn't talk to him. All I wanted to ask about was his book, and he had already made it plenty clear that he wasn't going to be talking about that anytime soon. I also wanted to ask him why he had lied to me, but I knew he would just cover up one lie with another, so I didn't bother.

Nudge and Angel were about to burst, trying to tell me with glances to talk to him, but I ignored their pleas. Angel bumped my leg under the table. I rolled my eyes again.

After a whole morning of sitting in chairs, my backside was starting to hurt for real. The stiff plastic seats of the cafeteria tables didn't ameliorate the situation any, either. Along with a bruised backside, my stomach was growling so violently I thought it was going to go on strike if I didn't feed it sometime soon.

_Don't strike me_. I thought at it. _Strike the football jocks._ _If they hadn't taken our table, you'd be full by now._

Nicholas, Iggy, and Lissa didn't talk to one another. Iggy was bouncing up and down in his seat. Lissa kept looking at me, which she thought I wasn't seeing, but that I actually did catch on to.

Suddenly, Nicholas spoke to me, again in such a quiet voice that none of my friends would hear. I thought about how weird they would think it was when they saw our lips moving, but no sounds that they could discern.

"You have World History next, right?" I no longer wondered how he knew my schedule, since he had the same one as me, but I did wonder how he got into the same elective classes as me – and the same Math class.

"Yeah. The teacher's pretty nice, if you get onto his good side, if that's what you're asking," I said.

"I could care less about the teacher," Nicholas scoffed. Then, he paused, at a loss for words. "I don't know how I should say this…"

"Say what?" I wondered if he was finally going to break the truth to me about everything that had been happening like he said to Iggy in Comm. Arts.

"I'm going to start from the beginning. What unit are you on?" he asked, suddenly all serious.

"The ancient Greeks and Romans?" I guessed because Mr. Colbert never told us the name of the unit until the day of the test. I just figured that's what we were doing right now, since most of the reading had been revolving around that.

"You know about the Oracle at Delphi, right?" he asked. Nicholas fidgeted a little; he was clearly nervous.

"Not much. We just started on it yesterday," I replied.

Nicholas turned back around to face the wall instead of me. He was closed off again. _Great…_

"Okay," he said.

"Is that it?" I asked, annoyed. He had my hopes worked up, and now he just bashed it down.

"Yep," Nicholas said.

I blew some air out of my nose. Nudge and Angel saw me. They must have seen me talking to Nicholas, as well. They looked at me strangely. Nudge had her bread halfway to her mouth.

"I want to ask you something," I said, changing the subject.

"Sure," he said, turning back around to face me.

"Do you also have beyond-average hearing or something, because we shouldn't be able to talk and hear each other at a volume this low? Like right now, my friends are thinking that we're total weirdoes because they can't hear a word of what we're saying, but they still see our mouths move," I said more than I should have.

"I should be asking you the same thing," Nicholas said, a ghost of a smile playing at the corners of his lips.

"Are you gonna answer me?" I was so tired of his vague answers and explanations.

"Okay, _sure_. You and me both have hearing like a bat's," he said in mock surrender.

I shook my head a little. My arms slid out a little bit, and my elbow touched his brown book. Instantly, a surge of _power_ ran up my arm. I felt rejuvenated. The bruise on my backside even felt ten times better. I felt jolted. I even wasn't that hungry anymore. My eyes widened.

As soon as Nicholas saw what happened, he jerked his book away from me. The awesome, golden feeling that had filled me when the book was in contact with my skin disappeared again, but its effects stayed with me.

"I've told you. That's my diary. Do not touch it," Nicholas hissed at me.

"Alright. It was an _accident_. I'm sorry," I scooted away from him an inch and brought my arms closer, back to my side.

"Don't touch it," Nicholas repeated.

I knew that he was still lying to me about his book, and he had raised new questions as well during our conversation. I wasn't buying the fibs he fed to me to try to satiate my curiosity, and now I knew that his book was something special.

_Something wonderfully special._

**Me: Chill out, Nicholas.**

**Max: See, Nudge. I'm not the only one who calls him by his full name.**

**Nudge: OMG! **

**Me and Max: What?**

**Nudge: Ha ha ha! Now we have a love triangle!**

**Max: *glares at me**

**Me: No... It's not like that!**

**Nudge: Ha ha ha! Angel, join me in maniacal laughter!**

**Angel: Ha ha ha!**

**Me: Why'd I have to give them overly active romantic imaginations?**

**Max: So it's all your fault! I'm gonna get you some day!**

**Nicholas: ;)**

**Me: You're not helping! :(**


	10. The Oracle Conversation

Like it had become a routine by now, Nicholas walked with Angel, Nudge, and me to World History. His two friends disappeared somewhere around the bend in the hallway. I guess the stalking job was Nicholas'.

Predictably, he also didn't say a single word to us on the way. I don't know how he could stay so placid. I, for one, was nearly bursting with questions about the strange conversation that transpired between us during lunch. Angel and Nudge looked at Nicholas and me every few seconds, like they could hardly believe what was happening. They definitely had questions of their own.

When we got inside Mr. Colbert's room, there was a piece of paper on every desk. Mr. Colbert himself was sitting behind his desk, calmly finishing up his lunch. The aromatic smell of his Italian pasta engulfed the room. If we hadn't just had lunch, my stomach would be growling again.

Mr. Colbert had a silly grin plastered on his face.

_Oh no…_

There were no instructions written on the board, for a change. I sat down in my usual seat. Angel sat next to me, and Nudge next to her.

_Great, now they were working together – plotting for Nicholas and me to get to know each other better._

As I suspected, Nudge smiled at me. Her grin practically lit up her black fedora with lights.

Either Nicholas knew what they were trying to do, and went along with it, or he had the same plan to begin with, because he took the empty seat on my other side. Ah, the seat politics of middle school.

"Nicholas?" Mr. Colbert asked him with a mouthful of pasta. He slurped the rest of the noodles with a loud, squishy noise.

"Yes, sir?" Nicholas replied.

"Take one of the packets sitting on the front table and read it out in the hallway. Highlight anything you think is important," the teacher pointed out the table.

Nicholas got up to get his reading. I put the clues together: Mr. Colbert's unrestrained happiness, the paper sitting on our desks, sending the new student out into the hallway…

We were going to have a _pop quiz_.

Angel got it about the same time I did. She tightened. _Tensed._ Looked around nervously and tapped her foot in a rhythm so fast I couldn't catch every note.

The rest of the class filed in. When the bell rang, Mr. Colbert tore himself away from his pasta to give us directions.

He was still smiling.

"Hey, what's the paper for?" the jock from yesterday asked no one in particular.

The smile widened.

"I have told you time and time _again_ to do the reading that I assign you. _Some_," he looked at Angel and me, "actually listen to me. The others feel too lazy to read three or four pages of text."

"But I don't get it!" someone piped up, a whining edge tinting her voice.

"That's why you _ask_ me. Do you think the best students in this class understand _every_ word of _every _reading that I give them? No, they don't, but they don't let that stop them. They'll reread it again and again, and when they _truly_ need some help, they come to ask me, and I _do_ explain it to them," Mr. Colbert said.

Nicholas was still at the front table. He seemed to be skimming over the packet, but I could tell that he was amused by Mr. Colbert's lecture.

"Angel and Max do not do well in this class because they are _smart_. No one is _smart_. They do well because they work hard, and if you were hard-working, too, then you'd also get good grades!" He threw his arms up in the excitement.

Nicholas walked back to his seat to get a highlighter. Soon, he would be in the hallway, where he would not be able to distract me.

How does your little plan work now, Angel and Nudge?

"So today, I'm giving you a quiz over the reading you were _supposed_ to have finished yesterday. Please put everything on the floor and get out a pencil."

The smile exploded into a full-out _beam_.

Everyone grumbled. Binders and papers were thrown to the ground like they were being pushed off a cliff. Some of our classmates glared at Mr. Colbert with a contemptuous look.

"I'm going to write two prompts on the board," Mr. Colbert uncapped a marker and moved to the whiteboard. "You will choose one of them and write an essay explaining your position. Include at least three details from the reading."

Nicholas slowly unzipped his pencil pouch. He was looking at the board, still amused. He must really want to see where this went.

"An _essay_?!" someone exclaimed in disbelief.

"Yep," Mr. Colbert replied happily. "If you had heeded my advice and read what you were supposed to, writing an essay should be no problem. You get the front and back of the paper."

"Front and back?" the person was almost choking by now.

"You don't have to fill it up. Use as much as you think that you'll need to fully explain your answer," Mr. Colbert said nonchalantly, writing the first prompt.

Angel cracked her knuckles. She had two number-two pencils out and her damaged pink eraser. She wore a look of determination to blow Mr. Colbert away with her essay. I knew she was bent on filling up every single square inch of the paper.

But that's Angel for ya.

I read the first prompt Mr. Colbert had written.

_Explain how the Oracle at Delphi influenced the lives of the people who went to her for advice._

Easy-peasy, because _I_ had actually done the reading.

Nicholas shifted from foot to foot. He looked like he was caught up in a tirade of his own thoughts.

Mr. Colbert stepped away from the board. I read the second prompt.

Why did people believe in the Oracle's prophecies? Explain.

I could really do _either_ of those two prompts.

Nicholas frowned and quietly left the room with a highlighter and his packet to the sound of pencils scratching on paper in the case of Angel and me, and pencils tapping on desks because they couldn't think of anything to write about in the case of most of our classmates.

Nudge always talked a lot, so I knew she wouldn't have trouble filling up both sides of the paper. Angel was furiously scribbling away. I thought for a few seconds about what I wanted to say and the touched my pencil to my paper.

I began:

Amidst all the uncertainties in their lives, the people needed a concrete truth to hold onto, for nothing scared them more than not knowing what happens next. Just as we have weather forecasts that attempt to break the unyielding barrier of time, the ancient people had an Oracle to tell them when to plant their crops, whether or not their countries should go to war, etc…

I wrote my essay and checked it over until the bell rang. Angel twiddled her thumbs as she proofread hers for just about the hundredth time. Nudge was one of the first people to turn hers in. She's pretty confident about everything that she does. You're lucky if you can get her to look over anything she does more than once.

Some of our other classmates looked like they were about to bang their heads against their desks for their dearth of words. I could see Mr. Colbert smiling behind his desk: _You should've done the reading._

When World History was over, everyone left in a huff of grumbles and complaints. Mr. Colbert handed each person a new packet for the next class.

"Just remember, I will sporadically give quizzes from now on. You might want to _read_, just in case," he said gleefully.

More mumbles. Grumbles. A boiling, _stewing_ pot of complaints.

Nicholas got up from his seat on the hallway floor to once again join Angel, Nudge, and me. This time, though, our walk to Science wasn't in the stifling silence of unasked questions.

"Do you believe in the _Oracle at Delphi_ stuff?" he asked me.

"Well, I don't know. She seems like kind of hoax," I replied.

"Do you think she's credible?" Nicholas repeated his question.

"Credible to do what? Give fortunes?" I asked.

"No, that's for genies and shrinks," Nicholas said without the slightest trace of humor.

_How can he still keep a straight face?_

"To lay out those people's futures," he clarified.

I sighed. "Listen, Nicholas."

He smiled ever so subtly when I called him by his name.

"If you're asking for answers to whatever test we're gonna be having, I'm not telling you," I said.

"Yeah," Angel was pouting, probably still about his superior speed in Trig. "We're not your stupid homework machines. If you think you can just waltz in here and pretend to be our friends for one day and then get the answers to anything you want, you are _cruelly_ mistaken."

"I can read and analyze the reading fine by myself," he said to Angel. Then, to me, "Why do you think everyone went along with what she said?"

I referred to my essay, "They wanted a stronger truth to believe in. They wanted to know what was going to happen in the future, because not knowing scared them."

"That's the philosophical reason," Nicholas said quietly.

Angel and Nudge stared at me like, "What the heck? _Philosophical_ reason?"

Angel went on to glare at him like, "Did _you_ just denounce my essay response?"

I spoke their questions aloud, "What do you mean? Why else would they believe in ludicrous stories?"

"_Prophecies_ are not 'ludicrous'," Nicholas' voice was edged with steel.

"Okay, I'm sorry if I offended your religion or whatever, if you believe in an ancient Oracle that no longer exists, but…" I was cut off.

"The Oracle's prophecies do still exist," Nicholas said.

"And _why_ exactly, are we talking about this?" I asked, rolling my eyes.

"I needed to see something…" Nicholas started waxing thoughtful again.

Angel and Nudge looked at him like he was completely crazy. I sort of agreed at the moment.

_What the heck was he so worried about?_

Nicholas, you have _officially_ succeeded in making me both curious and infuriated.

**A/N: *singing the Blue Danube...**

**Sing along, Nicholas! Da da da da da. Da da! Da da!**

**Nicholas says: :|**


	11. A Pencil Mustache

Angel and I got some papers left on the student table at the front of the classroom like always. It was a routine Mrs. Hutkins had set up in the beginning of the school year. The students get everything they need, instead of the teacher passing them out. She says it's for efficiency, but Angel (who doesn't particularly like Mrs. Hutkins after the Star-test-score fiasco) says she just doesn't feel like getting up, away from her computer, to walk around and hand us – the lowly students – papers.

I glanced up at the board. An oppressing picture of some scientist who looked like he hadn't washed his frizzy hair in about _a month_ stared down patronizingly at me. He must have been from a long time ago, because the picture was grainy and in black-and-white.

"Hey, Angel," I poked her in the shoulder once. She was diligently picking the best paper out of the stack – the one without any creases. _Sigh_.

"Yes," she sounded annoyed that I was poking her.

"Look at the board," I said.

Angel looked up from nit-picking her worksheet for the day and jumped back a little at the startling image of the scientist who was still scrutinizing us. A moment before, the scientist's chin had been right on top of her head. _Heh heh_…

"Has that been there the whole time?" she asked me.

"Yep," I popped the _p_ at the end for emphasis.

"Wow," Angel shook her head and went back to sorting through the papers. I think she must believe that if you get the perfect paper, then you'll get a perfect score. That's the only explanation I can come up with for her obsessive behavior. _Superstitious much, Angel?_

I giggled a little. Angel sighed, knowing what was going on in my brain. You can probably guess, too.

Random image time!

"Did you see his mustache?" It was true. The scientist's upper lip was adorned with a fantastic snood of facial hair. Again, I don't think he had washed it in about _a month_, by the look of the frizz.

Angel slapped her forehead. I was still giggling. _God, I must sound like her and Nudge…_

"Yes, Max. I think it's called a pencil mustache," she replied.

The scientist's mustache only went halfway across, much like Hitler's infamous one. _A "pencil" mustache?_

"I thought it was called a demi-mustache," I said. Demi- means half, right?

"Whatever," Angel was still preoccupied with picking out the perfect paper. A small line was gathering behind her.

Hold on, if the scientist has a mustache like Hitler's, and it's called a pencil mustache according to Angel, then it can only mean one thing…

"Hitler in a pencil skirt!" I exclaimed softly. Come on, I'm not such an idiot to let everyone in my Science class hear that sort of thing. Only my friends know the workings of my brain. If anyone else caught wind of some of the insane things I say, then my reputation would be _doomed_.

Out of the corner of my eyes, I saw Nicholas' mouth twitch erratically upward for a split second. _Did he just hear that?_ Oh no…

I think I've just succeeded in scaring my crush away. _Did I just say crush?_ I didn't mean that. Forget I said that. I meant to say _potential_-crush. There's a difference.

"Max," Angel groaned. She moved away from the student table, her perfect paper in her hand.

"Hold on, _what_?" Nudge butted her head in between us.

Angel shook her head like, "Don't ask."

I giggled some more. "Imagine Hitler…"

"Okay," Nudge sounded wary.

"And now, put him in a _pencil skirt_!" I was about to burst out laughing.

Nudge grimaced. She squinted her eyes. "_Ahhh!_ _Mind-soap!_ Mind-soap for the disturbing mental image!"

"Hey, Angel," I began.

"Max, please – don't," Angel warned me. She held out her hand in the universal _stop_ sign.

"I was gonna ask if you have some of that hand sanitizer you always carry around."

Oh yeah, that's another one of Angel's obsessions. She cares about her grades, weird school superstitions, and getting germs on her hands. I doubt she was lying when she told me this a couple years ago. She said that every room in her house had a bottle of hand sanitizer.

*Flashback*

I asked her what she'd do if her bottle at school ran out.

"Oh, don't worry. I've got another one in my locker," she said.

"And what if you're really having a bad day, and that one runs out?" I asked.

"I have another one," Angel replied perkily.

"And what if _that_ one…"

Angel cut me off, clearly annoyed. "Max, I've got plenty of hand sanitizer in my locker as back up."

I got an image of Angel's locker piled to the ceiling with Germ-X. I decided not to reveal it, though.

"Wow. You must be Germ-X's most valued customer," I said in mock admiration.

Angel saw quickly through my badly put-up veil of sarcasm. She punched me lightly in the arm.

"What?" I said defensively.

Nudge overheard our conversation and sneaked her hand across the table slowly, over to Angel's prized bottle of hand sanitizer. She quickly turned upside down so it was sitting on the cap part and retreated her hand before Angel could snap down on it.

Angel noticed, but Nudge was faster than her.

"Hey!" she protested.

Nudge and I giggled.

"Don't do that!" Angel sounded like a housewife from the '50s.

She righted it and flipped open the cap. Then, she went on to put some on her hands, even though she had just used it a few minutes before. I think she thought that our conversation must've tainted her hands somehow.

_Gee, thanks a lot, Angel_. I thought.

In the excitement, Angel squeezed a little too hard, and a gigantic glob of germ killer came out on her palm. She squealed.

"Ahhh! No! Too much!"

Angel tilted her hand downwards, aiming the excess hand sanitizer into the hole in her bottle that it comes out from. She was trying to put it back inside.

I knew it wouldn't work, because the company simply makes the opening so small that you can't ever put extra back inside, but I goaded her on anyway.

"Well, put it back in," I said.

"I'm trying," Angel said with a hint of desperation coloring her voice.

"You have tilt your hand at a higher trajectory, like this," I grabbed her hand and jerked it down.

"Gah!" Angel said in reaction. The goopy hand sanitizer ran down quickly. It completely missed the bottle opening and spilled out onto her blue binder.

_Oh no. I'm in big trouble._ I thought.

"NO! My binder!" Angel exclaimed. She turned frantic. The extra hand sanitizer was all but forgotten. She sprang up to get a paper towel to clean off her binder.

Nudge was laughing. She was about to fall out of her chair.

Angel ran back, armed with paper towels and a ferocious glare.

"MAX!" she roared.

I scooted away slowly from the crime scene.

Angel attacked the mess on her binder with a fervor I have yet to see be matched. She scrubbed at the incrimination hand sanitizer.

Nudge only laughed louder.

"What's – so – funny?" Angel punctuated each word with another scrub. Good, now she was turning her wrath onto Nudge.

Nudge managed to choke out an answer in between chortles. "You're _cleaning_ – _hand sanitizer_ off your binder!"

Angel gripped the paper towels tighter in her hand.

There is a slight spot – a blemish – on her blue binder to this day. I bet it eats into Angel's conscience every time she looks at it.

*End flashback*

"Don't you _dare_ bring up the hand sanitizer again," Angel wagged a finger accusingly at me.

I plow on with the strange story brewing inside my mind.

"And then, Hitler's Mom calls out to him as he's about to board the Nazi bus…"

"There's a Nazi bus?" Nudge asked at the same time that someone else in line to retrieve her papers said, "What the heck? A Nazi bus?"

Oh no, I've been heard.

I lowered my voice. "She says, 'Don't forget your tights, honey!'" I cackle at the thought.

Angel only says two words. Well… one if you hyphenate it. "Mind – _soap_."

Nudge had been the one to criticize me only a few moments before, but now, she had come over to the dark side. Nudge chuckled gleefully.

"Am I the only sane one around here?" Angel turns around to face both of us – the cackling fools in her eyes.

"You need to loosen up, Angel," Nudge says.

"What's that supposed to mean?" she says.

We take our seats. Angel and Nudge must still be in conspiracy mode, because they scuttle off to sit by each other, leaving me to be beside Nicholas. _Great_.

He says one thing to me right before the bell rings. "I don't the Nazis went to a school on a bus. A gas chamber train's more like it."

I let my head fall against the lab table in response. _God, he had heard _everything_. This is horrible! _

I decide to play it off.

"Are you scarred for life?" my words are muffled by the fabric of my shirt and the table.

"What, Hitler in a pencil skirt?" Nicholas asks, playing dumb.

"What else?" I make myself put my head back up and look him in the eye.

"Nah. I've seen worse."

I see him fingering his brown book again and I get the feeling that there's more to the meaning behind his response than what is obviously on the surface.

"Okay! Let's get started!" Mrs. Hutkins strolls to the front of the classroom and claps her hands together loudly.

"Today, we'll be going over this guy." She points to the scientist on the board.

The rest of class went by without any further humiliation, except for one more thing…

I learned that the guy I had referenced as being Hitler and wearing a pencil skirt was actually responsible for developing one of the past atomic theories.

Whoops. Sorry, scientist dude.

Once, I looked over at where Angel and Nudge were most definitely plotting their next move to set Nicholas and me up. Nudge gave me a thumbs-up when she caught me looking. Angel held up her index finger in the "wait a second" sign.

She scribbled something on a piece of notebook paper and held it up so I could read it.

Mind-soap

I gave her a look.

Nudge took the paper and wrote something else on it. I saw Angel shaking her head as Nudge was writing it, but she held it up for me to read anyway.

_How's your new seat? Any __intermolecular forces__ happening yet?_

Angel stared at Nudge like, "Congratulations. You finally learned something."

I'll explain. Intermolecular forces are the attractive forces that basically hold atoms together.

I slapped my forehead. _Facepalm_. Nicholas turned his head at the slight noise I had made. I quickly resumed my original position and waved for Nudge to put the sign down.

This time, Nudge didn't move fast enough. Nicholas' eyes scanned the aerial note before Nudge had time to stash it away.

I made a mental note that Angel and Nudge were going to _get it_ for that and not-so-subtly turned away from Nicholas so he couldn't see my embarrassment. Then, I remembered that Nicholas would probably walk out to the bus with me like my shadow, like he'd been doing this whole day.

_Cue Beethoven's 5__th__ symphony._

The agonizing walk of shame.

**A/N: See, science can be plenty of fun! ;)**


	12. The District Men

A huge crowd was gathered around one of my locker neighbors – one of the "_populars_". I mentally sighed and prepared to try to make myself as small as possible so I could squeeze through to my locker and get my stuff.

"Excuse me. Excuse me. Excuse me…" I lost count of how many times I said that two-word phrase in my struggle. Some people clearly did not know what the meaning of "Excuse me" means, because they did not bother moving an inch.

Probably just to make the speaker's life _that_ much harder.

Eventually though, the congregation parted enough to let me get in. I kneeled on the ground and started putting all my various books into my backpack.

"Awmigawd!" my locker neighbor exclaimed.

"Same!" one of her friends said.

"Heh heh," a boy chuckled, sounding like an idiot.

I can't remember if he is my locker neighbor's boyfriend or not. It seems like she changes her bf every two weeks. Then again, I don't really _attempt_ to keep up with all the school gossip about who's going out with whom. Angel and Nudge, however, are _completely_ different stories, as you've probably already guessed by now.

"Oh! I just remembered!" my locker neighbor exclaimed.

_Really, you actually _remember_ something for once?_

"So I went to the mall last weekend with Ashley and Ryan…" she continued.

"Oh my gosh, did he _finally_ ask her out?" Locker-neighbor's crony friend interrupted her spectacularly boring story.

"No! I think he's too chicken to do it in person! Isn't that weird?" Locker-neighbor replied.

_Not really. Most boys nowadays are cowards and jerks – cowardly jerks… or jerky cowards. Ha, ha. A piece of beef jerky dressed in a medieval knight's suit of armor…_

I realize that I'm eavesdropping again, but it seems to be a habit of mine, what with my supernatural hearing and all that.

"Anyway, I went to the mall with Ashley and Ryan, and I found this most amazing perfume," Locker-neighbor continued.

"Oh my gosh, can I see?" Crony-friend asked eagerly.

_Well, I don't know. _Can_ you see me?_

"Here," Locker-neighbor took out a transparent pink bottle out of her locker and sprayed a generous amount of it in the air.

_Aw, snap. I have to get out of here, _now_!_

The populars like their cheap perfume, but I absolutely _loathe_ it. They think it makes them smell like flowers, but they wear too much of it. Often times, an overdose of a good thing turns into a bad thing. Like, _sure_, they smell like flowers – if you mean these things called _stink_ flowers that open once a year and smell like skunk feces during that horrid time.

I'm not kidding. Those things _do_ exist. Thank you very much, 5th grade science.

"I love it!" Crony-friend squealed. She ate the smell with her nose. Meanwhile, _my_ nose was trying not to throw up.

_Gag. Gag. Cough. Gag._

"So, what about Ashley and Ryan?" Crony-friend asked once she finished smelling the air.

I didn't wait any longer to hear about the development between Ashley and Ryan. I wanted to escape the suffocating smell as soon as possible.

I sprang up from the ground and pushed my way through the populars' crowd. I didn't want to waste any time trying to be nice and saying, "Excuse me." Niceties fall deaf on their ears, anyway.

I don't know if I'm right, because I didn't have a stopwatch to time my progress, but it seemed like _pushing_ was a lot faster than meek "Excuse me"s. I guess the action gets the populars' attention more efficiently.

I walked down the hallway and out the school's main doors. I imagine the steady stream of students must resemble a group of migrating salmon. _Again, thank you, 5__th__ grade science._

I was about to hurry onto my bus before the real rush minutes began. Then, I noticed two things.

One, Nicholas isn't escorting me to our bus. I am _so_ glad. Maybe he understood the agonizing humiliation I would be going through internally if he did.

And two, Star was talking to a grown-up man dressed in a formal brown tweed suit. They were too far away for me – even with my weird ultra-sight – to see who it was. Judging by the man's attire, plus the fact that Star was talking to him, I guessed it must be someone from our school district. Star may be dumb, at least in Angel's and my eyes, but even she knows the whole don't-talk-to-strangers thing.

I began to listen in on their conversation. If it is someone from the district, and they're talking to Star, the only possibility is that he's notifying her of an award that she didn't know she had received. For some reason, the teachers and staff never see the kinds of backhanded schemes Star carries out on her competitors (a.k.a. Angel, and sometimes me). They still think she's perfect.

Boy, once Angel finds out that Star got recognition for something that she didn't receive, she is going to flip out. Her eraser must be cringing already.

Surprisingly though, the man wasn't asking Star what I thought he would be. He wasn't congratulating her, but instead was grilling her about Nicholas' book, of all the worldly things.

"Have you seen a brown book lately?" he asked in a muted voice. I could barely discern his words. "The front and back covers are leather, and it's about the size of half of a notebook."

"_Look_ mister, I don't know _why_ you're so interested in a book that we middle schoolers would carry around. It's probably someone's assigned reading, or their journal. If it's their assigned reading, then you are a _very_ trivial man, and if you're looking for someone's journal, you'd have to tell me who you're the parent of, or else you're just a plain creepy stalker," Star tapped her foot, impatient to get on her bus.

For once, I didn't mind Star giving cheek to people. This man seems rather suspicious.

"Would it help if I told there was gold writing on the front cover?" the man asked, unfazed by Star's reply.

_You know what? I'm just realizing that I eavesdrop _a lot_, but it always seems to help me in the end, so I'm gonna keep on doing it. _

I could sense Star become wary of the man. I knew something was off about him, but I wanted to hear what else he had to say. Star slowly crossed her arms.

"Why do you want this book again? And why do you think I know anything about it? There're plenty of other kids you could ask, ones that are more in-the-know about everyone in the school than me," Star said.

"I've told you. I am from the district. I have reason to suspect that there are messages in that brown book that infringe upon the school's code of conduct. For the safety of all students, staff, and faculty, I am looking into who owns the book so that I may solve this issue before it spirals out of control," the man said.

Somehow, I just didn't believe that he was from the district now. I've only really known Nicholas for a day, but I can already tell that he wouldn't bring a book to school that was inappropriate. He might own one, him being a teenage boy after all, but he won't bring it with him into a school building and whet my curiosity by flashing it everywhere.

Suddenly, I remembered the lie he had told me about the book being his diary. I hadn't confronted him about it yet, but now I got the feeling that something about the book brought danger. Maybe he was trying to protect me from maniacs like the "district" man. Angel and Nudge would be saying, "Awww…" if they knew about _that_ thought.

Star mulled this over for a second. "Um… I'm sorry, but I don't know anything."

_Yep. She is _definitely_ on the cautious side now._

"Are you sure? Think. Maybe you remember some odd detail that escaped your immediate memory today." The man seems _awfully_ desperate.

"Yeah, I'm sure. I'll be on the lookout though," Star flipped her hair, telling the man she wanted to go.

_Smart girl._

Star started walking to her bus, leaving the "district" man standing near one of the main doors. His face was still obscured.

"Would it help if I told you the gold writing on the front cover said _Maximum Ride_?" the man said quieter than before, to make sure no stray passerby would hear him.

I covered my mouth in shock. Something is most certainly up. He _knows_ about the book. I don't know what he knows, but he knows about it.

He knows about _me_. And probably Nicholas, too.

Oh my gosh, those are terrifying thoughts.

I know I should've left right then, but I couldn't seem to tear myself away from the mysterious conversation.

Star only paused briefly in her walk to the bus – the only time when her innocent façade slipped. Everything that happened in Trigonometry must be sweeping back into her mind.

_Keep on walking_. I prayed. _The man doesn't need to know any more than what he already does._

My prayer was answered, _thankfully_.

I _knew_ that man must have seen Star's hesitation. He's onto her now. He knows that she's keeping something hidden. Or maybe I'm just paranoid.

Then, the man started turning around, as if he just realized there was a third party listening to his conversation with Star. I ripped my gaze away and walked to my bus as casually as I could.

_Slow down_. I told myself. _Act normal. Act like a geek who just came out of school. Act invisible_.

I could feel the man's gaze sweeping over every kid filing out of school. I forced myself to not turn around. If I did, he would know that I had heard everything he said to Star, and that I harbored an ill-boding secret as well.

Nicholas' book didn't seem as appealing as it did before. An eerily dark aura engulfed it. I'm more curious than ever, however. Why _is_ the man after his book?

I got on the bus without any incident. When I looked out the window, the "district" man was gone.

My knees were shaking, knocking into each other. My mind was spinning with possible solutions. Even in the face of imminent danger, though, I found myself analyzing each possibility like a scientist. The logical side of my brain wouldn't shut down.

_What if Nicholas' book contained some high-security government secret?_

Impossible. What fourteen-year-old boy knows those sorts of things? Plus, his book has my self-pronounced nickname on the front cover. If the government is after me, _surely_ I must know about before he does.

_Could the "district" man really be Nicholas' father?_

Possibly. I couldn't see his face from my distance. But the man acted too urgent and desperate to be someone's parent. If he was Nicholas' dad, waiting until he got home from school to ask about his book would be more efficient than stopping random students and having clandestine conversations – nay, _interrogations_ – with them.

_It could be that the "district" man is really someone who Nicholas owes money to, like an enraged drug trafficker._

Maximum, what are you thinking? Does Nicholas look like a drug addict to you? This possibility is definitely out ruled. And besides, why would a drug dealer be after someone's book? They'd probably just whip out a gun and shoot.

During my musings, the bus started up. It prepared to drive out of the school's parking lot. I realized Nicholas still wasn't on yet. What's making him so late?

_Oh no_. The "district" man must have captured him already.

_Stop it, Max. You're scaring yourself. Nothing bad is going to happen. You all live in the middle of nowhere. Everything interesting always happens in either New York or California._

I looked over my shoulder, out the window. A frantic Nicholas was running down the school's main walkway. His backpack lurched behind him; his jacket was whipping his sides. His hair streamed behind him. For the first time, I saw the half of his face that had lain hidden behind his long bangs until now. I let out a breath I didn't know I had been holding.

Iggy and Lissa were behind him, both running with equal vigor towards our bus. If the three of them were all late, then that can only mean one thing.

_I missed another conversation that I could have eavesdropped on. Darn. _

And it was probably about me potentially being "the one" and Nicholas' book, since it seems like that's all they ever talk about.

_Double darn._

When they neared our bus, they stampeded up the narrow steps. I noticed they weren't panting at all, even though a sprint like that would make a _jock_ short of breath for a few minutes. Nicholas flipped his bangs back into place. The bruise he had gotten in Gym was completely gone.

_Weird_.

"Sorry miss," Iggy said, afflicting his voice to make it sound like someone from the 1920s. He mimed doffing an imaginary cap.

The bus driver only said to them, "Take your seats already."

"Will do miss," Iggy promenaded down the bus aisle leisurely.

The bus driver shook her head, clearly annoyed. Iggy grinned.

When the three of them were seated (for all you Angels and Nudges out there, yes, Nicholas _did_ sit next to me again), the bus driver made our bus roar out of the parking lot. A plume of carbon monoxide – the stuff that comes out of tailpipes – billowed out the back, most likely making the students in the bus behind us gag and wheeze. I honestly don't know when was the last time the district had the bus emissions checked.

I flicked my gaze towards Nicholas for a split second. He wasn't gripping his brown book like he usually did. It was probably in his backpack. Maybe he figured out, also, how curious the book was making me.

I was preparing myself to ride home in silence, but then Nicholas stunned me by asking a very pointed question.

"Did you talk to him?" he asked me. Concern flashed across his onyx eyes.

"What do you mean?" I replied.

"That man. Did he go up to you?" Nicholas clarified urgently.

"No…" I wasn't seeing why he making such a big deal out of this.

"But he _did_ talk to Star, right?"

"How do you know all of this?" I sighed.

"That's not important right now," Nicholas snapped.

"Just like, how did you know I was going to fall down this morning? And why you did lie to about your stupid book being your diary?"

"It's better for your own sake that you don't know," Nicholas crossed his arms.

I ignored his answers and plowed on. "And why were the three of you late? Were you talking about me again?"

Nicholas stiffened. "How do you know that we do?"

My lips curled upwards in a smiling sneer. "That's not important right now," I echoed.

Nicholas sighed, exasperated. "Look, just answer my questions right now, and I promise I'll tell you everything later if you're the one."

"_If_?" I knew I was pushing it, but still. "Oh yeah, and what happened to the 'last one'?"

"_Max_," Nicholas warned.

"Alright. I'll play interrogation with you," I sat back in my seat and leaned my head back.

"So when the man was talking to Star, you were there?"

"I thought you'd already know that, considering everything else that you seem to know," I said bitterly.

"Just checking. And he was wearing a brown suit?"

I stared at him. _Why was that so important_?

"Okay. And he was asking for my book?"

"Just like I am," I said with a _duh_ voice.

"Did you see who he was?"

"No. I was too far away."

Nicholas frowned, obviously disappointed about my lack of knowledge about his stalker.

"What? Do you want me to be close enough to a person that you're _freaking out about_ so I could see his face?"

"No. It's just…" Nicholas fished around for the right words. Translation: the words that wouldn't reveal too much. "The more things we have set in stone, the better."

"Oh, so you _don't_ know that. Gosh, and I was thinking you knew _everything_ because of your book that never let anyone touch," I said in mock admiration.

"Not even _Einstein_ knew everything," Nicholas shot back.

I turned my head to look out the window.

"What did Star tell him?" Nicholas asked me.

"Nothing," I said.

"She blew him off?"

"Pretty much."

"What do you mean, 'pretty much'?" Nicholas was set on edge again.

"Okay, _well_… She basically told him she didn't know anything, but when she was leaving, he asked her about the book having my name on it – which I'm also wondering about, by the way, _Silent Nicholas_ – and she paused a little bit because she was _so_ surprised, but she kept on walking, but now that man _must_ know that _she_ knows something or else she wouldn't have hesitated." All of my words came out in a rush. _Gosh, Nudge is rubbing off on me_.

Nicholas closed his eyes and let out a slow breath. "This isn't good. Star's in danger, now."

"What do you mean, she's in danger? You're saying that man's gonna come after her just because of some dumb book?" I was nervous now.

"It's not 'some dumb book'." Nicholas said defensively, almost in a growl.

"Alright. I'm sorry. _Gosh_." I held up my hands in the I-surrender gesture.

"Did he see you?"

"You don't know that _either_? Wow, I'm _so_ shocked," my words dripped with sarcasm.

"Max, this isn't a game. It may seem like one to you right now, because you don't know anything, but it's not," Nicholas said with sincere seriousness.

I grew solemn. "Well then, enlighten me."

"You don't understand this either, but I _seriously_ can't – not until we're sure that you're the one," Nicholas looked really annoyed.

"We meaning you, Iggy, and Lissa," I said.

Nicholas nodded.

"Okay. Fine. Keep your little secrets. I don't _care_," I knew I was pouting.

"You wanna know what happened to 'the last one'?" Nicholas sounded mad.

_Uh oh_…

"We told her everything, before we had _confirmed_ that she was the one, and basically, her life got ruined. And she disappeared. The man that talked to Star – the one that I'm asking you about – took her away for questioning. We're still not sure where she is, or even if they _bothered_ keeping her alive. Do you want that to happen to you?" Nicholas hissed.

I was stunned. _Wha_–

Wait. He said if _they _bothered keeping her alive. But _the man_ is only one person. That means there's more people like him.

_What the heck_?

"Exactly. So you will wait until we decide whether or not to reveal everything to you. For now, you will answer my questions. I'm trying to protect you," Nicholas said, pushing his anger back down.

_So I was right. All the lies _were_ for protection_.

"Now. Did he see you?" Nicholas repeated his previous question.

"I don't know," I said honestly. "He was about to turn around and see me, so I started walking towards the bus. I didn't look back. I didn't run. I tried to act normal, but I don't know if he bought it. When I got on the bus, I looked out the window, and he was gone."

"Good job, Max. That's the best solution we'll have for now," Nicholas said with a sigh of relief.

"_We_ still meaning you, Iggy, and Lissa? I don't see why they're tied up into this _thing_ with you," I said.

"No." Nicholas turned to face me. His black eyes glistened. I tried to decipher his expression, but it was too placid for me to get anything out of it. The tone with which he uttered his simple one-syllable reply, however, sent shivers down my spine. There was _way_ more meaning behind it than someone would think.

All of you Angels and Nudges out there, _shut up_. Your _awwws_ are making my fists twitch. And you _know_ what'll happen if I can't restrain them effectively.

"Aren't you gonna ask me why I was listening to the man and Star in the first place, putting myself in _grave danger_?" I asked ominously.

"I already know that," Nicholas smirked. "It's the same reason why you've been eyeing my book all day and pestering me about it. It's why you've been following me around like an admiring fan."

I playfully punched his arm. "Hey, I haven't pestered you… much. And _you're_ the one who's been following _me _around. I thought you were going to be my stalker or something."

Nicholas exaggerated stroking his beard-less chin. "I'd say _something_."

"Huh. What do you mean?" I was confused.

"Well, _Angel and Nudge_ made it pretty clear that I'm not your stalker," Nicholas shot a lopsided grin at me that made my heart skip a beat.

I bristled. "Screw Angel and Nudge."

Nicholas chuckled.

Soon, we got off at our stop.

Nicholas asked me suddenly as we were walking to our respective houses, "You have a phone?"

I snorted. "I _doubt_ my Mom would let me ride the bus without it."

"Cool. I might need help with the homework for a while, until I adjust," Nicholas said.

"I'm not giving away free answers," I was on high alert again. The giving-away-free-answers scenario had played out too many times in the past for me to fall for it again, even if it was Nicholas.

_No, no, no. I'm getting distracted._

_Wait, had he just asked for my number?_

"I know. I'm not asking you to, either. Just in case I don't get something, or if I have something to tell you," Nicholas said.

_If I have something to tell you. If I am "the one". Same difference._

"Okay," I said.

Nicholas grinned again in reply. By now, we were almost home.

I walked up my driveway and opened the garage. Nicholas, Iggy, and Lissa had a few more paces to go before they could go to their homes.

Faintly, unintentionally, I heard Iggy say to Nicholas, "Dude, you let it slip again."

"What?" Nicholas asked.

"I mean, what was all that on the bus and just now about?"

"Nothing."

"Oh really?" Iggy sounded incredulous.

The garage was open. I could go inside, but I wanted to see where this was headed.

"If you're gonna hit on a girl you're not supposed to, at least _ask _for her number. You have to at least _pretend_ you're normal."

"Oh, _shoot_." Well, Nicholas actually used a different word, but I don't want to repeat it. Angel may not approve. Nudge could care less.

Iggy laughed.

"Quit tormenting him," Lissa said to Iggy.

I imagine Nicholas must be blushing right now. That's quite interesting. How would _that_ look?

I entered my house. Only when I had gotten started on homework, and was halfway through with it did I realize what Iggy had been saying to Nicholas.

First, Nicholas might call me, but for some reason, he already _knows_ my number. _Creepy_.

Second, the first thing has something to do with his book, Star's kidnapping plot and the "district" man, and what happened to "the last one". _Shivery_.

Third, Angel and Nudge's plan just might work. It seems like we've become each other's distractions.

_Oh my god, Angel and Nudge's plan just might work!_

Suddenly, the history of the atomic theory doesn't seem so interesting anymore.

**A/N: The "district men" are _thisclose_ to alerting the school of an intruder drill. **

**Beep. Beep. We have an intruder. We have an intruder.**

**"Give me The Book! Gimme!"**

***fight, fight. Throw a few punches, give a few kicks. Someone pulls a flying kung fu move like Jackie Chan.**

**Beep. Beep. We are all clear. We are all clear.**

**;)**


	13. Stomach Gymnastics and Eyebrow Dancing

"You have to tell us everything that happened on the bus!" Nudge said.

We – Angel, Nudge, and I – were walking in the hallway, heading to Comm. Arts. Nicholas stopped insisting on following me to every class, but he _still_ sat next to me. Except now, instead of feeling annoyed like I had the day before, my stomach did a little flip every few minutes.

Maximum Ride's stomach, at the 2016 Olympics, performing its floor routine for gymnastics.

Oh gosh, that's a disturbing image.

The first half of the school day had passed uneventfully. Well, except in Trig.

*Flashback*

We sat in the same order as yesterday. Nicholas was next to the wall; I was next to him; Angel closed me in from my other side; and Star had to pull up a chair again.

I could tell that she wasn't too happy about being the odd one out, but there was no one to blame except for herself. I mean – she _could_ take less time talking with her minion-friends and come to class sooner. But I guess having Star abstain from gossiping would be like telling Angel and Nudge to quit meddling in other people's romantic affairs – _impossible _to enforce and quite torturous for them.

Nicholas hid his brown book among his stack of papers. I think he wanted to water down my curiosity and keep Star from seeing any more of it. If he were right, and just seeing a _glimpse_ of it brought the "district" man over to interrogate her, then a whole fleet of his cohorts would fly in next if Star got too familiar with it.

Angel, for the most part, was too preoccupied with beating Nicholas at homework to notice anything else. Thankfully this time, Nicholas let her win.

We were all working on homework by this point. The only sound in the room was that of our pencils scratching against notebook paper and buttons on our calculators being pressed. Nicholas was really careful to not let our elbows touch. I don't know, I guess I was kind of…disappointed? I thanked every deity I knew about or had learned about that Angel couldn't read my mind. If she could, I knew I would never hear the end of _that_ one.

Suddenly, Star said very quietly under her breath (well, not as quiet as Nicholas and I can speak), "Did you know that a stranger dude is after your book?"

Almost imperceptibly, Nicholas tensed beside me. He was careful to not let Star notice newfound caution when he spoke. "Really, which one?"

Oh come on, Nicholas. I know you're smarter than that. Considering how you already had my number without asking me for it first and all that… I thought.

"A brown leather one, with gold writing on the front," Star continued nonchalantly.

I looked over at Angel. She was still safely absorbed by a swirling mass of sines and cosines.

"My diary? Do you know who he is?" Nicholas lied so smoothly.

"He's some guy from the district. He said you have 'inappropriate' stuff in there," Star said slowly, as if testing her words.

Angel muttered, oblivious to everything else, "What's the sine of 60 degrees? Come on, you idiot, you should know this! I bet stupid _Nicholas_ would know this. Let's see… Sine of sixty. Sine of sixty. _God_, why am I so stupid? Think, think, _think_!"

Angel must have thought that no one except herself could hear what she was saying. She was so wrong. If I could hear it, no doubt Nicholas also could. I don't think he took any offense by it, though.

"_So_…" Star leaned across the table like Nicholas was going to tell her a juicy secret. "What's in there? Lemme see."

"Grrr… I did this _wrong_. It's supposed to be _cosine_ of sixty! Darn, darn, darn!" Angel took out her eraser-of-doom and repeatedly bashed is head mercilessly against the table with each "darn". After her eraser was thoroughly dizzy, she took it tore into the pencil marks on her paper.

"Did you just ask to read a guy's diary?" Nicholas asked Star with one eyebrow raised.

Star's face reddened a little bit – but only a _little_ bit. She was a _pro_ at this kind of stuff.

I tried not to laugh and be equally focused on my homework as Angel.

"If you let me see, I promise I won't tell on you," Star said calmly.

_Is she _blackmailing_ you?_ I thought.

"You gonna be a snitch now?" Nicholas asked her.

_Come on, Maximum. Sine of forty-five degrees isn't really _that _funny._ I thought.

"And seriously," Nicholas said when Star didn't say anything. "There's nothing in there that you'd _want_ to see."

"Are you giving me permission to tell the district person that you're guilty?" Star shot back.

_Man, she must really want to know what kind of secrets Nicholas' book harbors_. I thought.

"Listen, Star. Just stay away from that guy," Nicholas used the same tone as the one he used with me on the bus – the tired, just-take-my-word-for-it tone.

"Why?" Star retreated back to her seat.

I looked at our supervisors. They were busy crooning about some celebrities' affair scandal on Yahoo News. We're safe.

"And pretend like you've never seen my book, okay?" Nicholas ignored her question.

"_Why_?" Star repeated.

"There're _plenty_ of secrets for you to snoop out other than what a guy has in his diary," Nicholas said simply.

"You're just mad that I know you have a diary, because that's a sissy thing," Star taunted him.

Nicholas' obsidian eyes turned into arrowheads in a split second. I knew he wasn't mad about what Star had said, though. It was more of the fact that she wouldn't leave the subject alone.

He put his right hand on an edge of his book and stared at Star for a few seconds. I thought I heard him mutter, "I don't want to do this, but you have to forget." I wasn't sure, though.

An image of his book, the "district" man, and a string of words rolled across Star's pupils quickly. I almost gaped.

_Am I seeing this right?_ I wondered.

Angel was still working away. She wouldn't have seen anything, so I wouldn't have a person to check with.

As suddenly as the images and words popped up, they disappeared. Star picked up her pencil and got back to work. Nicholas lifted his hand from his book gently and punched some numbers into his calculator, going back to his homework as well. I replayed what had happened in my mind. I still wasn't sure if I had conjured the whole thing up. After all, I _do_ have an overactive imagination.

For the rest of class, Star didn't ask Nicholas one more question about his book. In fact, she acted like she didn't even know it existed.

A string of chills ran down my spine.

_Had Nicholas just erased her memory?_ I thought.

I decided I wouldn't ask him about it. Then I wondered why Nicholas hadn't done that to me yet. I sure pestered him way more than Star did. Maybe it was because I still had a _possibility_ of being "the one", and surely "the one" has to remember that the book exists, right?

Nicholas started to scare me, just a little, but it didn't override the inexplicable draw I felt towards him.

_Okay, now I'm really glad Angel can't read minds._ I thought.

*End flashback*

"Max? Hello? Earth to Maximum," Angel was waving her hand in front of my face.

I remembered that I hadn't replied to either one of them for a while.

I try to be nice, telling you all these back-stories, and see where it gets me? Maybe I should just keep up with the present time and not skip back and forth? Nah, it's way more interesting this way.

"Yeah?" I asked her.

"Did you just zone out on us again? Or do you really seriously not want to tell us? Because if you don't, we're okay with that," Nudge said sincerely.

Angel looked at her like, "What are you thinking? Come on, the Max-and-Nicholas show is way better than cable." Nudge glared at her and elbowed her arm.

"Ow!" Angel rubbed her arm where Nudge's pointy elbow had left its mark.

Nudge looked away, her hands behind her back, whistling casually like people do in those movies when they're exaggerating the message of, "What? _Naw_, there's no way _I_ did that."

"Guys, cut it out," I said.

"Yeah, Nudge. Cut it out," Angel said.

Nudge gave her a look, her black fedora shadowing half of her face.

"You wanna know what he said?" I asked them.

"Yes! Of course!" Angel said. Nudge rolled her eyes in agreement.

"Well, this actually happened after we got off the bus…" I decided to skip the part where we were on the bus. Nicholas had made it pretty clear that people shouldn't know too much about his book, or else the "district" man might come after them.

I also wanted to ask Angel and Nudge a question. I had a guess as to how Nicholas got my number.

"Hey, did you guys give Nicholas my number?" I asked a temporarily placid Angel and Nudge.

"No…" Nudge eyed me weirdly.

"Why would we do that?" Angel asked me seemingly innocently. I say "seemingly" because _someone_ must have cracked and decided to speed the thing going on between Nicholas and me up a little.

"Why would you think that?" Nudge followed up. A few seconds later, her eyes grew big. She slowly turned around to face me with a huge grin stretched across her face. "He called you, didn't he?"

Angel squealed with delight. I half expected her to jump and down, clapping her hands, like all the prep girls do in those movies.

Wow, I just realized that I make _a lot_ of movie references. Maybe I should get a life…

"No," I said. The effect that response had on my two best friends was analogous to that of an executioner's entrance.

I had waited all afternoon and evening for the phone to ring. I could barely focus on what I was doing, and every tiny ring-like sound had me jumping up. Therefore, I decided at the end of the night that Nicholas was playing mind games with me.

By this time, we had entered the Comm. Arts classroom. I looked around to see where Mrs. Merrill was. She was nowhere to be seen. Instead, a prune-faced lady who looked rather like a drill sergeant was in her place. She had so many wrinkles in her face that you could count them to pass the time, like how we count the dots on the ceiling whenever a lecture gets especially boring. Nudge told me once that she had gotten to 748 before.

"Then why do you think that…?" Nudge began.

Drill-sergeant lady abruptly cut her off. "No talking. Take your seats!"

While she talked, her eyebrows undulated violently, like they were two twin dragons, writhing to escape. I can already tell that if this sub were going to give us a lecture, I would have a difficult time concentrating. I mean, it's unnatural – dancing _eyebrows_?

"Alright, m'am. Where do you want me to take my seat to?"

_Nudge, be a smart girl. Don't pull your usual antics on this lady. You shouldn't cross someone like that_.

The prune sergeant narrowed her eyes in warning. She picked up a pencil and a yellow office referral sheet.

_Oh, snap. Nudge_…

"May I ask? What is your name, young lady?" the prune sergeant asked Nudge.

Nudge rapidly glanced at the yellow sheet in her withered hand. Her eyes darted around, nervous – scared. Nudge may be a bit of a prankster, but she's never been sent to _the_ _office_ before. It's usually a little reprimand here, a chastising there…

"You're gonna send me to the office for asking where I should take my seat to?" Nudge asked in disbelief.

"I have the ability to do so, yes," the prune sergeant smiled wickedly.

_This sub day is _not_ going to be fun_.

"What! That's not fair! Mrs. Merrill would never do that!" Nudge turned defensive.

Some more students began to file in. The first thing they saw was the three of us clustered around a wrinkled, leather-bag of a substitute.

"_I_ am not Mrs. Merrill. Mrs. Merrill handles things her way, and I with mine. Frankly, I think Mrs. Merrill needs to be firmer with her students. They act like rampaging donkeys – _so_ undignified, uncultured," the prune sergeant shook her head sadly.

Nudge clamped her mouth shut. I _know_ how much of an effort that must have taken her. She's probably thinking right now, "What the flippin' heck? Did you just call everyone primitive donkeys? And you're gonna send me to the office for asking a _question_?"

"Now, young lady. I suggest that you take this as a warning. The next time you lose control of your flapper, I _will_ write you up, and if you still have the nerve to argue with me, I will add a lunch detention to the fray. Do you understand?" the prune sergeant looked pleasantly pleased with herself.

"Yes." Nudge's face looked like she was swallowing a mouthful of bitter medicine. Angel looked terrified.

"Take your seats," the prune sergeant said again. Her withered mouth twisted itself into a knot of a sneer.

We trudged to our seats. The whole class gaped, but they didn't have the guts to say anything, lest the drill sergeant should turn on them, too.

The bell rang without fanfare. The entire class was silent. I could smell the fear, tangible in the air.

"Mrs. Merrill is gone today. She went to a Comm. Arts teachers' meeting. I will be filling in for her today. You may call me Mrs. Ivory," the prune sergeant said to the class. We stared back at her, not knowing what we could safely do.

"Silence is golden, is it not?" she asked us finally.

No one dared to answer her question.

"Well now, I will take roll. When I call your name, say 'Yes, m'am.'"

The staring-fest continued.

Inside, I wanted to put my head down. Sub days are usually pretty fun. The students end up pulling all sorts of pranks on the poor substitute, and we hardly ever do any work. There was only one downside to a typical sub day – they call roll by the attendance sheet, meaning your full, given name. Teachers know the nicknames that students preferred to be called by, but not the subs.

My full name is especially embarrassing to be called by. It's why I started telling everyone I was Maximum Ride a few years ago – my self-pronounced nickname. Nudge and Angel don't like theirs either. All three of us have kind of old-fashioned, classical novel names that don't fit well into the twenty-first century.

The prune lady started calling out names. Everyone responded with "Yes, m'am." If Mrs. Merrill could see this, she would _so_ proud.

"Angelina Luthe."

"Yes, m'am," Angel replied in a small voice.

"Alexandria Tripps."

"Yes, m'am," Nudge said sullenly.

"Maxine Richardson."

"Yes, m'am," I said politely. Do you see now, why I dislike my given name? It isn't too hard to imagine someone from _Pride and Prejudice_ or _Little Women_ saying, "Maxine Richardson, you forgot your bonnet!" And just fyi, I would _never_ wear a bonnet.

"Isaac Gabrielle."

Even Iggy replied with "Yes, m'am." Even he didn't dare say something different.

The roll call went on and on. When the prune lady was finished, she picked up a pile of papers on the teacher's desk and walked back to the front of the classroom.

"Mrs. Merrill intended for you to finish _The Fall of the House of Usher_ today. I have no objections, either, to her arrangements. However, the previous classes acted like buffoons during the movie. They refused to be quiet, and as the lights were turned off, I could not identify the culprits of the tomfoolery. Therefore, I gave them an alternative assignment to complete. That worked out better than the movie, so I will also be giving you the assignment to save us all the trouble."

_Is she actually smiling as she is saying this? Pernicious prune_.

Mrs. Ivory passed out the packets she was holding. I quickly flipped through it. It was at least a ten-paged packet.

_Oh, Lord have mercy_.

"Since you are doing a Poe unit, I thought this might be fun," the prune said.

Most of my classmates stared at her in disbelief.

"Edgar Allan Poe has many famous quotes. One of them is, 'All that we see or seem is but a dream within a dream.' You will come up with your own quotes and write an essay on what it means and how it is important to you. This _will_ be taken for a grade, and it _is_ timed. You will have twenty minutes to plan, and forty minutes to complete your essay. At the end of the session, you will present your quote to the class. You may begin," the prune almost cracked open with her malicious smile.

I looked at Angel. She was really tense. _A graded, timed essay and presentation_. Just think about what that means for her.

Angel sat and thought for a few seconds, and then began to furiously scribble things down in the planning pages of her packet. I got down to work, too. While I planned, I wondered what Iggy would come up with. This ought to be _good_.

Mrs. Ivory walked around the classroom, surveying the work of her prisoners with obvious glee. When she looked down at Iggy's paper, she let out gasp. All heads turned towards them.

"Young man, what do you think you're doing?" Mrs. Ivory asked him.

"I'm doing the assignment, like you said," Iggy said innocently.

"Are you taking this seriously at all, or are you going to spoof it?" the prune asked.

"I'm taking this _very_ seriously," Iggy said. I couldn't tell if he was lying or not. His tone was so neutral.

"Do you honestly want that quote to go down in history – to be remembered as your golden words?" the prune was aghast.

Nicholas leaned over a tiny bit to see what Iggy had written on his planning sheet. He is curious, too, and yet he tells me to not snoop in other people's business. The prune sees Nicholas trying to sneak a peek and turns on him.

"This is an individual assignment. You would do well to practice academic honesty," she said.

"Yes, m'am," Nicholas said. He slinked back into his own chair and pretended to go back to work.

"Sir, what is your name again?" the prune goes back to Iggy.

"Um… Iggy?" he said, not sure if she wanted his real name or his nickname.

The prune looked taken aback. "Oh, well alright. Iggy, can you not think of any other quote to do your essay and presentation on?"

"I truly believe in this one. I do," Iggy said seriously.

_Okay, now I know he's just trying to scare the sub. What _did_ he write, anyway_?

"Well, that's your choice, but you would do well to heed my warning," the prune lady said as a parting comment.

The prune sergeant continued to terrorize her students by pacing around the room. Everyone snapped their heads back down to their own papers at almost the exact same time.

"Very thoughtful, Maxine," the prune said when she came over to my desk.

"Oh, thank you," I said, smiling _so_ falsely at the sub.

_That's right, you betcha I'm a darn good actress_.

"Very nice work," the prune told Angel.

Angel didn't stop what she was doing. She continued to scribble away.

"_Very focused" is more like it_.

At the end of the forty minutes, Mrs. Ivory called us up one at a time to give an impromptu one-to-two minute speech on our quote. Mine was basically about never giving up. I won't bore you with all the poetic details. Nudge said something about living life to the fullest. It makes sense – her saying that. Angel spoke about dedication. Again, it matches _perfectly_.

When it was Nicholas' turn, he told us about the past, present, and future are intertwined, and how each choice branches out to form a web. When he said his last sentence, he looked directly at me. I don't know if anyone noticed, but what he said sent shivers down m spine.

"So everything you do now will change your future," he had said.

I got the feeling he was trying to send me a message, somehow. I also had a hunch that his quote was tied in with everything about his book, but I couldn't quite put my finger on it yet.

Mrs. Ivory winced slightly as she called Iggy up. All of the students turned their undivided attention to him. We were all waiting to hear what he had written that had made the harsh sub so mortified.

Iggy exaggerated clearing his throat. He composed himself so that his face was expressionless and began, "I will now tell you about a flying whale filled with hydrogen."

I don't know how he kept a straight face while he said that. I was trying to stifle my own laughter. What he said sounded familiar. I think it was from a book I had read – _L- something_.

"This is the quote that will go down in history… forever!" Iggy said, still while maintaining a neutral expression. Mrs. Ivory shook her head in disappointment.

Iggy's speech turned out to be about how laughter kindles the soul. He eventually dropped the monotone façade and became lighthearted again. At the end of his speech, he reiterated, "And just remember that history will remember me as the one who tamed a whale balloon filled with hydrogen! Thank you!"

Iggy took a grandiose bow and went back to his seat. He was the last presentation we had time for. The bell rang as soon as he sat down, and we all sprang out of our seats like there were hot coals underneath.

"Not so fast!" Mrs. Ivory said. "The bell does not dismiss you. I do. And since you were so rude as to disregard my authority in being able to dismiss you, you will remain seated and quiet for another minute before you are allowed to leave."

_I feel sorry for her children_.

The sixty seconds ticked by, and when Mrs. Ivory finally let us leave, we all practically trampled each other while trying to get out the door.

On the way out the door, Nicholas brushed past me, dropping a few feathery words. "I liked your speech. Meet me at lunch. Bring Angel and Nudge, too."

He didn't linger for me ask him what this was all about. I was stunned.

What does Nicholas want from me? And why does he also need Angel and Nudge?

"Angel? Nudge?" I called.

"Yeah?" Nudge bounced by my side. Angel flanked me on the other.

"We're gonna meet Nicholas for lunch," I told them, still wondering why.

"Oh my gosh! This is huge! He asked you out to lunch!" Nudge squealed.

I rolled my eyes. "And the two of you, too."

"But still!" Nudge would not be dampened down.

Angel said suddenly, "Do you seriously think Mrs. Ivory is going to give Iggy an A? He gave a speech about flying whales filled with hydrogen."

I sighed. Leave it Angel to care about that. "Well, points for creativity, right?"

"I guess…" Angel drifted off, lost in thought.

"Come on! We wouldn't want to be late for – Nicholas. Now would we?" Nudge raised her eyebrows simultaneously when she said his name.

"Aw, shut up already!" I whined as an extremely happy Nudge dragged a ponderous Angel and a curious me off to the cafeteria.

"A flying whale…" Angel mused. "Wait, didn't that come from a book?"

I groaned. "Angel, just give it a break already."

"Well, I don't see the point of grades if something like that can still compete with my speech," she said.

"Max, Nudge, Angel," Nicholas voice suddenly came from behind us.

_How did he…?_

"Nick!" Nudge greeted him way too enthusiastically.

Angel jumped a little bit.

"Come on, we'll sit here today," Nicholas led us to a table in the farthest corner of the cafeteria, where Iggy and Lissa were already waiting.

His brown book lay out in the open – not hidden, not clutched – just resting conspicuously. The golden letters on the cover glared at me.

My heart sped up. He was finally going to tell me.

Blood pulsed through my veins in rhythm with the two words running through my head: _Maximum Ride, Maximum Ride, Maximum Ride_…

**A/N: Cliffy! Cue the suspense music! ;)**

**And the book they mention in here that talks about a flying whale is "Leviathan". I've never read it, but I like to bug my friend, who has, about it. Basically, the people in the book inject hydrogen into the animals, and they can fly. It's like a weird, mutated "Ghost of Flying Dutchman" ship.**


	14. So Now We Know It's You

**A/N: An alternate title to this chapter = The Curse of the Rotten Orange that Greatly Annoyed "The Rock" Dwayne Nicholas**

**I mean... You'll see...**

* * *

No surprise, Angel and Nudge arranged themselves so I was sitting next to Nicholas – _again_. Nudge shook the contents of her lunchbox out on the table while Angel quietly zipped up her blue jacket. I, meanwhile, just stared at Nicholas' book. I really wanted to touch it, but I remembered how he had hissed at me to stay away from it during lunch the day before.

A large, disfigured orange rolled out of Nudge's lime green lunchbox. Green and black dots speckled it, like it was a mutation of a cheetah.

"Aw, Mom. What'd I tell ya about getting groceries?" Nudge groaned.

She made no attempt to stop the orange in its destructive path. It headed straight for preppy little Lissa.

_Oh, this will be fun_.

Lissa shrieked. "Ewww! Get your orange away from me!"

Nudge stared at her for a second, assessing her fear, and then said, "What, that one? Oh, don't worry. It's only been sitting in our cupboard for a few months or so." Nudge smiled wickedly.

Lissa scooted herself as far away as possible from the orange. She was about to knock Iggy off the cafeteria table's bench.

The orange continued to roll. It loomed closer and closer to Lissa's shirtsleeve. The hairy mold spots waved at her like they were antennae.

"Oh, finally getting close to me? Huh?" Iggy teased Lissa.

The redhead silenced him with a glare. She looked from a grinning Iggy to the orange and back again. I think the orange won.

"Move!" Lissa booted Iggy off the bench, keeping a wary eye on the orange. Nudge was almost rolling on the floor with laughter by now.

Iggy fell on the floor with an _oof_. He pushed himself back up. "Hey, that wasn't nice. And aren't you the one who's always telling me to be nice?"

"Extreme times call for extreme measures," Lissa said quickly, never taking her eyes off the orange. It was still rolling towards her.

"_Extreme times_? For Pete's sake, it's a stupid orange. Quit being a sissy and let me back in," Iggy was annoyed.

"I bet that orange is smarter than you," Angel muttered under her breath.

"Are you still mad about that? Come on, I doubt Mrs. Merrill is even going to take it for a grade," I said, rolling my eyes.

"Huh? I never said anything," Angel replied.

_Oh, so now she's playing the pretending game._

"Alright. You never said anything," I said in an off-handed tone.

Angel's cheeks turned ever so slightly red. She knew she had been caught.

"Iggy, the orange has _mold_ on it!" Lissa whined. "Do you seriously want me to touch that vermin?"

"Quit insulting my orange. It's already taken enough abuse," Nudge said to Lissa.

"You're not helping," she retorted.

"Seriously, if it would help you overcome this fear of being in contact with nasty things, then yes. I do," Iggy was trying unsuccessfully to get Lissa to move by kicking her legs under the table.

"Ahh! It's coming!" Lissa screamed. Indeed, the orange was only a few inches away from her now.

"Lissa, you're either gonna move back, or I'm just gonna sit on your lap," Iggy threatened.

Nudge burst into a fit of maniacal laughter again. Her black fedora fell off as she threw her head back. Her neon purple highlight brushed across her eyes.

Nicholas shook his head and sighed.

I was still staring at his book. _When is he going to tell me?_

"You can if you want to, but I doubt you'll have the guts," Lissa snorted.

Iggy's face reddened. Lissa was right. "Lissa, just _please_ – move. I need to sit down before the principal starts the announcements."

Right when he said that, the principal walked out and said into the microphone, "Everyone, please sit down and be quiet. I have a few things to tell you."

Iggy jumped. There was no time left for diplomacy. "You know what, I'm just gonna end this," he muttered with finality.

It happened so quick Lissa never had the chance to react. Iggy reached across and flicked the orange into her lap with his thumb and middle fingers.

Lissa gasped as the moldy orange plopped into her lap, forever contaminating her navy blue slacks. She clapped a hand over her mouth to contain a scream. While she was in shock, Iggy nudged her over and sat down. He brushed his hands together after he sat down.

Nudge looked like she was going to explode. She also had a hand over her mouth to stifle her laughter. Her face was turning a brilliant shade of vermilion. Angel took out her bottle of hand sanitizer and cleaned her hands.

Nicholas and I looked at each other and then at a satisfied Iggy and horrified Lissa. Lissa was hyperventilating. I could hear her ragged breaths as the moldy orange sank further into her preppy pants.

As soon as the announcements were done, Iggy said, "See, that wasn't so bad, was it? I even touched it, and I'm not turning green yet." At the same time, Lissa let out a tiny, squeaky scream.

"It's on me! The mold! It's getting on my pants!" she wailed.

Nicholas got up while Iggy and Nudge was both hysterically laughing. He gingerly picked the orange off Lissa's lap and walked over to Nudge.

"Do you still want this?" he asked her tiredly.

"Nah. It's fine. You can keep it," Nudge beamed up at him.

Lissa was furiously brushing her pants.

Nicholas sighed once more, turned around, and tossed the orange into a trashcan a few feet away. _Trash basketball_. _Two points_.

When he sat back down, Iggy was clutching his stomach, giggling like a little girl. Nudge was searching through her lunchbox for anything else she could use to potentially freak Lissa out. Lissa was slapping her slacks – like that would help get the mold off. Angel was re-sanitizing her hands. I was still staring at his book.

"Guys, we have to focus," Nicholas said calmly. "We've already confirmed that…"

"You idiot!" Lissa slapped Iggy's arm. It must have been pretty hard, too, because Iggy got out an _ow_ amidst his laughing. "Why did you have to that?"

"I helped you out," Iggy said, still giggly.

"No you didn't."

"Yeah, I did. You're fine, _see_. Now you won't be so scared of moldy oranges because you know they're not gonna bite your head off."

"Ugh!" Lissa sounded disgusted. She turned away from Iggy and crossed her arms.

"Focus," Nicholas repeated. It's strange. I don't think I've ever heard his raise his voice. He is the human reincarnation of a rock.

"Alright, alright. We're focusing," Iggy said, wiping away the rest of his giggles.

"And Nudge, don't even think about using the expired ham," Nicholas warned without turning his head.

_What expired ham?_

I looked at Nudge. Sure enough, she was sneaking a plastic bag with green and purple ham back inside her lunchbox with an apologetic smile on her face.

_Wow, her Mom _seriously_ needs to go grocery shopping_.

"Okay, do you see that book?" Nicholas directed his question at Angel, Nudge, and me.

We nodded.

"Hey! It has Max's name on it!" Nudge said, pointing out the obvious.

Angel looked at me. "You _published_ a book? And Nick _bought_ it?"

I was ready to do a facepalm. Of course Angel would assume something like that.

"No. I'll get to that," Nicholas said to Angel.

"You guys know about the Oracle? Right?" Iggy asked us.

His question reminded me of something Nicholas had asked me the day before – a similar question about the Oracle at Delphi business.

"Yeah. We're learning it in History," Nudge noisily slurped some juice out of a CapriSun juice packet – possibly one of the only things that aren't expired or moldy.

"Well, this book is kind of like that," Nicholas said.

"It's an oracle?" Angel gaped.

"It has a prophecy written in it," Nicholas corrected her.

"So, like, it can tell the future," Nudge squeezed the last drops out of her juice box.

"A certain future, involving certain people," Nicholas told her.

_Oh, so that's how come he knew all those things that would happen to me – the fall, Star's meeting with the "district" man_…

"But it has to be fulfilled. So it's not quite like a fortune teller," Iggy explained.

_Oh, great_. _What have I gotten myself into?_

"And we were missing some people for the fulfillment of the prophecy," Lissa continued.

"We were actually missing the person that the prophecy is all about," Iggy said.

_I can see where this is going now_.

Nudge and Angel were hanging on to the edge of seats, taking in every single word they were saying.

"And at first, we weren't sure who that person was," Lissa said.

"But now, we've confirmed it because everything The Book said would happen to that person has happened," Iggy said.

"And today, in that person's Comm. Arts class, she did the thing that defined her identity as 'the one' for sure," Lissa switched off with Iggy one last time.

_I wonder if they had rehearsed this thing beforehand. They are so synchronized_.

Nudge and Angel sucked in a breath. It isn't every day that they get to hear a story like this one. For me, I wasn't sure if they were pulling our legs or not. It seemed too supernatural to be true. I mean, who's ever heard of a book being able to tell a prophecy.

"So now we know it's you," Nicholas said, _directly_ to me.

Flashes of everything that had happened with Nicholas and his book ran across the inside of my eyelids. The brown book loomed behind it all like a background. The piercing golden letters seemed to grow larger and larger with every single image.

Nicholas' words echoed in my mind.

It's you. It's you.

_It's you_.

* * *

**A/N: Cliffy! Double whammy! I know you guys probably hate me for doing that, but the next chapter(s) will pay it all off. Notice the "s" in parentheses? See, chapter 15 is twenty-one pages or so typed into Microsoft Word, so I didn't know if you wanted to read all of that all at once. I can split it into several sections, or if you really want to, I can post the whole thing. Tell me, and majority wins!**

**Also, I may not even be able to post next week. It all depends on how much wifi I'll have when I go to party with the grizzly bears. So, fingers crossed!**

**Folding Turtles out! ;)**


	15. The Big Reveal Part 1

**A/N: I know it's been a while, but I can explain. You see, some skank in Seattle popped the car lock and stole the laptop that I use to post my chapters, so I couldn't update until I got back home, even though there was wifi in the U.S. Northwest. Not to worry, though, all of my files are quadruple backed-up. And people think I'm paranoid for making five copies of the same document. {eyeroll}**

**So... blame the car prowler for the long wait, not me.**

**Anyway, I hope you enjoy.**

**Peace. Folding Turtles is really tired and frustrated and been through a lot.**

**;)**

* * *

I recover (somewhat) from the shock. _I am "the one"_. It's a lot to take in at once, you know? I've kind of guessed it, since Nicholas kept following me around, and he and his three friends always talk about me and The Book, but it's something else entirely to hear them say it and confirm my suspicions.

"So…what now?" Nudge says.

"Basically, there are instructions in this book," Iggy holds it up. "That we all have to follow. And once the prophecy is fulfilled, we're done!"

"That's it?" Nudge raises her eyebrows incredulously.

"Yep!" Iggy smiles contentedly.

"Well, it does get a little more complicated once you're actually trying to follow the instructions. They aren't written in the most _clear_ way," Lissa says, shooting Iggy a glare.

I suddenly got it. "Like all of the Oracle's prophecies…"

"Yeah… We're never completely sure if we're supposed to do something, or nothing at all." Iggy scratches his head. The neon blue tips wave like dancing flames.

"Are you guys serious?" Angel asks again. Leave it to Angel to act as the voice of reason.

"Yes. We've already told you that this isn't a joke," Lissa replies.

"It just seems a little farfetched," Angel says, gazing up at the ceiling like _that_ would answer all of her questions.

"So, what's the prophecy?" Nudge was still excited, though. Anything to wreck her boredom.

"We'll tell you later," Nicholas glances around the cafeteria. There are too many people around for him to say anything more.

"Aww… Come on! You can't just spring something on us like, 'Oh! You guys are part of this big prophecy thing, and Max is _the one_!' and then shut yourselves up again! That's mean!" Nudge whined.

_Yes, why am I the one?_ Nicholas has still neglected to explain that part of it.

"You guys can come over to Fang's house after school. Then, we'll go over everything – well, _mostly_ everything. We don't want to overload you," Iggy corrected himself.

"Really? That sounds great! You're a few houses down from Max, right? We'll just switch buses today," Nudge directs her question at Nicholas.

He nods.

Angel looks at Nudge like, "I can't believe you're actually falling for this scheme. You're too gullible."

Nudge returns with a smile that says, "Angel, you have to loosen up once in a while. Trust me, this will be fun!"

Angels scowls and turns back to her lunch.

"Section four, tables four, five, and six, you may leave for class," the principal announced.

"Alright then. Everything's set," Lissa picks up her books and whisks out of her seat. "See you later!"

Iggy follows her to their next class. Nudge, Angel, and I get our things together for World History. I notice that Nicholas didn't go with his friends. He looked like he was waiting for us.

"Um…" I wasn't sure how to approach this. "So, now that you already know that I'm _the one_ and all that, you can stop stalking me, right?"

_Lame, lame, lame, Max. And so awkward_.

Nicholas doesn't answer my question. He blinks at me.

_Such _superb_ timing, Nicholas. You pick this moment to go all silent-emotionless-placid on me_.

As we walk towards Mr. Colbert's room, Nudge grins at me and pokes me lightly with her elbows.

Right as we were about to enter the classroom, Nicholas leans down and breathes a feathery sentence into my ear, "I could, and I probably should."

Once again, for the second time today, I am left stunned and speechless, with more new questions than answers.

"So, can I see your book now?" I ask Nicholas when we were on the bus.

He didn't answer and stared out the window on the other side of the aisle.

World History went as usual. We did some more work with the Oracle at Delphi. I paid more attention to Mr. Colbert's lecture than I normally do, which is really saying something. Everything that I learn now will help me make sense of the crazy prophecy Nicholas and his friends have set up.

When we went to Science, Nicholas still trailed us. Angel and Nudge still kept their seating conspiracy up so I would have to sit next to Nicholas. However, the effects of hanging on to every single word wore off. My mind was engulfed with questions and theories. Not to mention, I was a little bit hyper.

I didn't catch much of what Mrs. Hutkins had said. I still took the notes that she had put up on the board, but my mind wandered from atomic theory. None of the information in the notes sunk in. I knew I would have to do some extra studying at home to make up for lack of attention during class.

Mrs. Hutkins told us to write something down in our agenda books at the end of class, but I didn't hear what it was. I figured I would just ask Angel later. It was probably a quiz or something over the notes we had taken today.

"I mean, since I'm a part of this prophecy now, I figured it might be best that I read what I'm supposed to do," I repeat.

"You will, _eventually_," Nicholas replies.

"Eventually? What's that supposed to mean?"

"You're new to this. We have to explain a lot of things to you first, or else you might take the instructions the wrong way and screw up the fate that the Oracle of the past had proclaimed," Nicholas says offhandedly.

I gaped. _Screw up the fate that the Oracle of the past had proclaimed._ There are two so completely different tone of voice in the same fragment.

"What'll happen if we mess the instructions up?" I ask him.

Nicholas looks lost in thought.

"Will the universe explode?" I wonder.

"Maybe…" he drifts off.

"But you don't know." I state.

"No," Nicholas looks me in the eye. "So far, we've followed the prophecy perfectly."

"What a snobby thing to say about yourself," I tease him. "No one can do something perfectly. Even Einstein made mistakes."

"Oh! I know! The Oracle that wrote this prophecy thing and then threw us into it – she'll probably wake up from her grave and…" I continue with my theories until Nicholas claps an ice-cold hand over my mouth.

"I'd rather nothing goes wrong, okay? It's better if we don't try _intentionally_ to mess with fate just to see what'll happen," Nicholas says with severe seriousness.

"I'm just saying – _if_ we misinterpreted one of the instructions? It's an interesting thing to think about. Almost like the grandfather paradox," I try to explain myself.

Nicholas closes his eyes and leans back into the bus seat. "Please, don't get started on that."

"What? The grandfather paradox? You _really_ have to work on being more articulate when you tell people things. I mean, we can't read your mind, and each language has its own limitations," I say.

"That's what you think," Nicholas says quietly.

"Huh?" I am confused. "That's scientifically impossible."

"So is predicting the future. But soon, you will see that all the rules of physics and science that you know will be bent," Nicholas says ominously.

_Now he was starting to scare me a little_…

"_What?_ What are you talking about?"

"See, that's why you can't read my book yet," Nicholas smiles with satisfaction. "You still have much to learn about you've gotten yourself into. You must think that you know some great secret, but you've only scratched the surface. Compared to all the dark matter in my book, you don't know a thing."

"Do you even _know_ what dark matter is?" I ask Nicholas.

"Of course I do," he says.

The bus started out of the school parking lot. It drove for a while, and then I spoke up about two things that had been bugging me.

"Nicholas, can I ask you something? Well actually, two things," I tap his shoulder.

He turns and looks at me through his hair – a midnight veil. I think he smiled a tiny bit, but about what, I couldn't fathom. Unless… He read my thoughts… No, that would be too creepy.

"When you said that you've never messed up the prophecy before, you were lying _again_, weren't you? The 'other one' that you said got kidnapped by the 'district men' and was never seen again was your first mistake, wasn't it?"

Nicholas' face blanched. I had guessed correctly.

"So then you must know what will happen if we don't follow the prophecy the way it was meant to be, but you don't want to tell me," I plow on.

Nicholas turns away from me so his hair falls in a curtain between us. He really _doesn't_ want to talk about this.

"But the universe didn't explode, did it? Or else I wouldn't be here asking you these things. And it probably wasn't something drastically horrible, either. It was most likely just a jolt, a deterrent. Am I right?" I ask him, knowing full well that I wouldn't get an answer.

"You sure are one smart girl," Nicholas says softly. "But please, drop it. You're not ready yet to know everything."

"You can be so condescending at times, Nicholas," I pout. "But, thank you. I get that a lot."

"Figures," he mutters to himself.

"Okay, and number two… What'd you mean by what you said to me in History?" I ask.

The bus is almost at our stop.

"I can't remember every single thing that I say to every single person, much less what I meant by it. Do you expect me to?" Nicholas deftly avoids my question.

"You're a fantastic liar, you know that? Do you ever tell the truth?" I ask.

"When the truth is needed, yes," Nicholas replies without skipping a beat.

"When you feel like it," I correct him.

"I'm not like that," he says stiffly.

"Really? Well, right now, I need to know the truth. What do you mean to gain by dropping these incredibly mysterious quotes and acting the way you do? Because frankly, I am quite confused," I say more than I meant to.

Way_ more than I meant to. Drat_.

"Quite confused, are you?" Nicholas smiles. "You'll be even more confused if I told you why. Like I said, you don't know a thing yet."

I glare at him and turn away. I look out the window. And then, I remember something.

And I start freaking out.

"What am I gonna tell my Mom?"

"Huh?" Nicholas is probably wondering why I'm suddenly in a flurry.

"Nudge, Angel, and I are coming to your house like, right now, so you three can do some serious explaining. I didn't tell her this morning that I was gonna go over to someone's house, and when she finds out that it's you, she's gonna flip out, even though Angel and Nudge are going with me, because she doesn't know your parents yet… Oh god, oh god, oh god…"

"Your Mom sure is strict," Nicholas says, dumbfounded.

"Ya think?" I look at him.

"Tell her I'm your friend now," Nicholas says.

The phone number incident comes back to me. I'm going to have to ask him about that sometime and get a straight answer.

"Are you?" I ask him.

_What are you doing, Max? Now is not the time to confirm who is or isn't your friend_.

"Well, you _still_ think I'm your stalker…" Nicholas states.

"My friends and I use that term loosely. I was kidding," I say. I dig in the front pocket of my backpack for my phone.

"Glad to know that," Nicholas nods and gives me a thumbs-up.

I flip open my phone and send a message to my Mom:

_Angel, Nudge, and I are going over to Nicholas' house today along with Iggy and Lissa, the other two kids that moved in a few days ago. I'll be back before dinner_.

After I click the Send button, I turn around and see Nicholas looking down at me. He was smirking and glancing at my phone.

"What?" I ask him.

"You text people in complete sentences," he says.

"Yeah, so?" I give him a _duh_ look.

"You are the epitome of formal," Nicholas slings his book bag over one shoulder and clamber out of our seat.

"And yet, I hate formalities," I mutter, remembering how much effort my Mom had to exert to persuade me to greet our new neighbors.

"What was that?" Nicholas asks me as we are about to step off the bus.

"Nothing," I shake my head.

Iggy and Lissa are right behind us.

"Hey, Max," Iggy taps me on the shoulder.

I face him and we continue to walk to Nicholas' house. "Yeah?"

"Play a game with me, alright?" Iggy asks me.

"Um… okay." I think that it is strange request, but I go along with it anyway.

"After everything I say, you answer 'pea-green soup', okay?" Iggy says with a straight face.

Lissa groans. "Ugh, not that one again!"

Iggy gives her the glare of death and continues. "Got it?"

"Sounds easy enough. What kind of game exactly is this?" I decide to ask him.

"A fun one. Trust me," Iggy smiles mischievously.

Iggy is not the first person that I would trust, but I figure playing a game wouldn't hurt. I shrug.

"I'm going to begin. What did you have for breakfast?" he asks me.

"Um… I think I had a bowl of cereal and two pieces of toast," I cast my gaze upward as I think back to the beginning of this morning.

"No. You're supposed to say, 'pea-green soup', remember?" Iggy reminds me of the only rule of his game.

"Okay. Pea-green soup," I correct myself.

"What did you make after breakfast so you could eat lunch?" Iggy continues.

"Pea-green soup." _I am not seeing the point of this game._

"Then, what did you have for lunch?"

"Pea-green soup." _This is getting nowhere._

"What do you love to eat?"

"Pea-green soup." _What kind of game is this?_

"So, what did you have for dinner?"

"Pea-green soup." _I'm getting kinda bored over here_.

"What did you do after dinner?" Iggy grinned.

I don't think you can answer a question about an action with a noun and be grammatically correct, but I say, "Pea-green soup."

Iggy bursts into laughter. Lissa shakes her head and looks at the ground. Nicholas mutters to himself and sighs.

I look back and forth between the three of them, wondering about their reactions.

"What? What'd I do?"

Iggy continues to laugh his heart out. Lissa slaps him once on the arm to tell him to cut it out.

"Come on, why won't any of you tell me?" I was starting to sound whiny, but I didn't understand what was happening.

Iggy finally composes himself and says to me as an explanation, "What did you _do_ after dinner?"

I thought back to my answer.

_Darn it. I can't believe I actually fell for that_.

The heat begins to rise in my cheeks. When Iggy sees my reaction, his laughter bubble pops open again.

"It's not that funny," I try to save myself.

"Don't worry, Max. That's his way of initiating you into our group," Lissa says disdainfully, glaring at a still-laughing Iggy.

"You mean…"

"Yep. When I first found out, the same thing happened," Lissa crosses her arms. "Even Fang almost fell for it, and he's known Iggy and the kinds of tricks he pulls for forever."

_Well, of course _Nicholas_ would never get tricked by something so trite_.

"Hey, at least now you know," Iggy pats my arm after he stuffs his laughter away. "And you can use it on other people, too."

"No, thanks." I can't imagine what the idiotic jocks would do with a trick like that. I would rather dark humor like that is only known by a few people.

"I bet Angel would work really well," Iggy wiggles his eyebrows.

I do a face-palm. Angel would hate me for a few days if I try something like that on her. Nudge would love it, though.

"Wow, Max. Do you seriously know nothing? You think this is _dark _humor?" Nicholas looks amused.

We stop walking. Nicholas takes a key out of his pants pocket and unlocks his front door.

Iggy and Lissa look confused. I am, too. "What? I never said…"

Realization whips across Nicholas' face. It disappears in an instant. He turns away and motions for us to go inside. When I cross the threshold, I look back at him. He didn't meet my eyes, instead choosing to look at an interesting tree across the street.

_Whatever_.

"Nicholas, you brought guests!" Mrs. Tricott beams at me. She wipes her hands on an apron she was wearing.

"We'll be upstairs, Mom," he tells her.

"Alright. Do you kids need any drinks? Snacks?" she turns to go back inside the kitchen.

"No thanks," I say. A scary lesson my Mom taught me flows through my mind. A young child had gone to someone else's house, accepted a water bottle, drank it, and ended up in the emergency room. It turned out that the person's parents really hated this kid…

"Are you sure?" Mrs. Tricott looks at me.

I nod.

"What do you have?" Iggy looks transfixed by the prospect of food.

"Do you want to see?"

Iggy bobs his head up and down so fast it was blur.

Mrs. Tricott waves for him to follow her. Lissa sighs. Nicholas sets his book bag down on a couch and follows it down, sitting beside it.

"This might be a while. Make yourself comfortable, Max," Lissa says to me.

I gape. "You don't mean…"

"Iggy in our kitchen equals a kid in a candy store," Nicholas says.

_Okay_…

I plopped down in a seat next to Nicholas and got my phone out. My Mom had already replied.

_Told you they were nice kids. See, you're friends already!_

I roll my eyes. My Mom always has to be right.

Then, something occurred to me. Nudge and Angel said they were going to request to ride my bus today, but they didn't. I don't think they would forget something like that, either, especially not with _Angel_ knowing the plan.

They ditched me! Why would they do something like that?

I start typing furiously onto my phone:

_Nudge – and Angel, I know you're there, too – why are you guys not here?_

I press send.

Nudge and Angel must have known I would figure out their scheme – whatever it was – pretty quickly, because Nudge responds almost right away.

_Here where?_

Nudge decided to play dumb.

_Nicholas' house. I thought you guys wanted to know about the prophecy deal._ I send back.

_Oh yeah! I no u'r going 2 b mad at us, but… _Nudge replies.

_What are you guys doing this time?_ I type.

_Why do u always think we r doing something?_ Nudge asks.

I send nothing but a frowning, growling emoticon back to her.

_OK… Ange'll explain. A: Well… Nick's going 2 b there. We don't want 2 get in u'r way_. Nudge didn't want to have to face my wrath, even though a cell phone screen separated us.

Of course. I should've guessed. This is Angel and Nudge's best attempt to set up a date between Nicholas and me. But still, I can't believe they would do something like this – such a dirty little trick.

One corner of Nicholas' mouth turns up in a Cheshire cat grin. I don't know what would be so amusing to him. Maybe he can sense my ire next to him.

_You guys are not going to get away with this._ I reply.

_We know. But u r going 2 thank us l8r :)_ Angel replies.

I sigh and put my phone away. I don't remember how many messages that was, but I know the text-war between Nudge, Angel, and me put a huge dent in my account balance. Ten dollars for three months is a lot of money if I only use my phone for _emergencies_, but if I do what I had just done, the money disappears mighty quickly.

"I'm back!" Iggy sang. "Did anyone miss me?"

"Come on, Ig, let's just go," Lissa ushered him up the stairs. She has a pretty difficult in front of her. Iggy was holding a tower of sodas, juice boxes, chip bags, and popcorn that leans precariously.

"Where's Nudge and Angel?" Nicholas asks me. We were the last two people to ascend the stairs.

"Oh… um…" I was stalling. I'm not as good of a liar as Nicholas is. "They forgot to switch buses this afternoon."

That is kind of the truth, depending on whether or not you consider intentional suppression to be "forgetting".

Nicholas looks at me with his deep black eyes. I know he doesn't believe it. "Sure…" he says.

We go up the stairs to find Lissa and Iggy both trying to steady his pile of food.

"Don't bite off more than you can chew," Lissa hisses to Iggy.

"I didn't bite anything, and I'm sure as…" Iggy sees Nicholas glaring at him. "…_heck_ not chewing anything."

"Well, then don't take more than you can carry," Lissa says.

"You could've just said that from the beginning, and I wouldn't have Fang looking all mad at me like this right now," Iggy shot back.

"I was trying to use a metaphor. It makes you think, something your brain needs to do once in a while," Lissa says playfully.

"Even I know that's not what a metaphor is. I think it's called an idiom," Iggy says, looking at Lissa.

"Exactly," Lissa says for a lack of something else to say. She releases her hand from where she had been supporting one side of the food pile earlier, and Iggy rushes to balance it.

"Hey, that was mean," Iggy protests.

"You're in eighth grade. Get used to it," Lissa pushes open the door she is standing in front of and enters.

Iggy waddles in, trying desperately to maintain his center of gravity with an armload of food. Nicholas holds the door open for me.

"After you."

"Thanks," I say. Nicholas comes in after me and shuts the door softly behind him. I guess we were in his room.

I look around. It's nothing like what I would have thought someone like Nicholas would immerse himself in.

There is a cherry wood desk off to one corner with black and white composition notebooks aligned with the corner of the desk and stacked neatly one on top of the other. A cup of pens sits casually next to it. A silver laptop is half closed in the center of the table. Reams of paper are sprawled on the other side of the desk, a stark contrast to the neat half. Frenzied words are scribbled across the surface of the papers, the ink beaten into the pulp. I squint, but they are still too small for me to make out.

More paper covers his walls. Some have quick, sketchy pictures drawn on them, others contain yet more words. This time, though, the pictures cannot hide from my eyes with their size. Most of them are blurry scenes, the figures in them mere shadows. A few are discernible. When I study the faces in them, I gasp and jump back.

Almost-exact portraits of _me_ gaze forlornly out the window. There are also portraits of Lissa and Iggy, as well as Nudge and Angel. In some, we are doing things that I don't remember doing in places that I have never been to before.

"Are you okay?" Lissa asks me, seeing the shock splashed on my face.

"What – is the meaning of _this_?" I wildly wave my arms around.

"Oh, well right now, we're in Fang's room," Iggy says with a wave of his hand as he pops open a Coke.

"Really?" I say sarcastically. "No, I meant those drawings."

I turn around to face a sheepish looking Nicholas. "They're certainly not convincing me that you're not my stalker."

"You won't understand any of that until we go through some other things first," Nicholas says tensely.

"_What the _flipping_ heck_? I need to know why there're pictures of me and my friends fleeing from a shadow that were drawn by a teenage boy and are hanging in his bedroom!" I am starting to lose my cool, but you can't see something like that and expect to take it calmly.

"Hey, why don't you give _her_ the evil eye for almost saying a curse word?" Iggy pointedly asks Nicholas.

"Because I know that she really is _only_ going to _almost_ say a curse word, but you would've rampaged on nonstop if I hadn't reminded you that we have a guest," Nicholas says quietly. I notice he avoided my question.

"And, Max, I promise everything will make sense. We have to start from the beginning," Nicholas says to me.

"Are you some kind of per – creeper?" I catch myself.

"I was hoping you would take this better than you are right now," Nicholas mutters to himself, rubbing his temples. "I knew we should've sorted this out at the library or something."

"What? Are you blaming _me_ now for how she's reacting?" Lissa stands up from the chair she had been sitting in. "We agreed that this was the best option. If we kept your crazy obsession from her until the last minute, she would be more freaked out."

_Crazy obsession? Ha! Understatement of the day!_

"It's not an obsession," Nicholas grits his teeth. "…If it's truly important."

"Whatevs," Lissa flips her hand and sits back down.

"Can someone please explain to me what is going on here?" I am about to scream with the frustration of not knowing.

Nicholas looks at Iggy and Lissa. Iggy gives him a thumbs-up. "Gotcha. It's your book anyway."

He and Lissa leave the room.

And now I'm alone with a potentially psychotic deviant. That's just _great_.

**To be continued...**


	16. The Big Reveal Part 2

**Previously...**

**"Can someone please explain to me what is going on here?" I am about to scream with the frustration of not knowing.  
****Nicholas looks at Iggy and Lissa. Iggy gives him a thumbs-up. "Gotcha. It's your book anyway."  
****He and Lissa leave the room.  
****And now I'm alone with a potentially psychotic deviant. That's just _great_.**

**And now, for the continuation...**

"Max, no matter what you think, I promise nothing bad will happen," Nicholas holds his hands up and says each word slowly.

I back away from him and say, "If you're gonna try anything funny, I'm gonna call 911."

"It's not like that." Nicholas looks frustrated. "Didn't you want answers? Didn't you want to know…?"

I cut him off. "What I want to know is why your other two friends suddenly left me in a room with creepy pictures hanging on the walls, at the mercy of the artist."

Nicholas takes a big breath and begins. "Everything I tell you right now – you have to promise me you won't judge. And you have to believe it, no matter what the science says."

"Fair enough," I cross my arms.

"If you hadn't figured this out by now, I'm kind of in charge of The Book and the prophecy that goes with it."

That makes sense. It's why he's always the one carrying that idiotic brown book around.

"I'm like the whole thing's manager."

"Hooray," I say dismally.

"The prophecy is like a story in some ways. Almost every story has a hero or heroine or two. The Book has _the one_. I'm the person who'll guide everyone through the instructions, but you're the one who has to make it all come true. The main character, in a way," Nicholas continues.

I snort. "Yeah, and no pressure to me."

"That's why I'm the only person here to tell you this. Iggy and Lissa know it all, too, but I'm bound by duty to be the one who explains it to you."

"Thank you for making me feel slightly less nervous," I say with a pout while looking up at the pictures again.

"Max, I'll get to those later," Nicholas notices my glances.

"Okay… So, what do I have to do?" I ask.

"The whole prophecy, mostly, is about keeping The Book safe," Nicholas continues.

"Why? Would it be a big deal if someone read it and knew what was going to happen in the future?"

"Well, that's part of it. It'd only be a big deal if they read it and the district men found out that they know something," Nicholas looks out the window like he was remembering an event that happened in the past.

"The 'other one'?" I ask for clarification, recalling the time when Nicholas had exploded on the bus after Star talked to the "district man".

"Sort of…" Nicholas drifts off.

I know there is more to the story than what he had already told me, but I decide to let it go. I have a lot of other questions that I want answered.

"Why are the 'district men' after your book, anyway?" Obviously, there has to a reason.

"The Book can give its possessor unimaginable powers – abilities beyond anything that mankind has seen so far. The 'district men' are hunting down The Book because they want to use it, and the powers they will acquire, to take over the world," Nicholas grits his teeth with contempt.

"The classic 'I am a psychopath, and I want world domination! Mwa ha ha ha!' plot, I see," I say with a smile.

"Pretty much," Nicholas gives me a wan lopsided grin that makes my heart skip a beat. "I've already used the powers, too, but only when I needed to help the fulfillment of the prophecy along. Think back, Max."

Well now… This would explain his uncanny intellect in every subject, including my phone number; his bruise from P.E. that disappeared after a couple hours; the golden sensation I felt when I accidentally brushed his book during lunch; what happened to Star during Trigonometry.

What _had_ happened to Star during Trigonometry?

"Nicholas… About Star…" I start cautiously.

"I had no other choice. She wouldn't quit bugging me, and it's better to tamper with her memory than to risk her getting captured by one of the 'district men'," Nicholas looks down at the ground, almost reproachfully.

"You literally _erased_ her memory?" I'm not as shocked as I thought I'd be.

"I could've done worse," Nicholas shrugged.

"Like what?" I am curious now.

"I could've put a fake memory in her mind instead," Nicholas says.

I don't respond right away.

"What, does that scare you?" Nicholas steps a little closer to me.

I laugh. "No! That is freaking cool! You're like a genie! I'd love to be able to do that!"

Nicholas shakes his head. "No you don't. With power comes great responsibility."

"Haven't heard that one before," I say sarcastically.

Then, a thought occurs to me. "Hey, Nicholas. Can you read minds, too?"

"Why would you say that?" Nicholas looks at me curiously.

"I get the feeling a lot in class, and just a few moments ago, that you somehow know what I'm thinking. Like the 'dark humor' thing, and then I was thinking that Angel and Nudge had played a 'dirty little trick', and you started grinning like you knew something that I didn't," I say.

"You really hate not knowing, don't you?" Nicholas asks me.

"What straight-A student doesn't?" I roll my eyes.

"Well, I don't think Angel would mind, as long as Star knew even less," Nicholas says.

"Hold on, answer me. And quit changing the subject whenever you don't feel like answering. If I really am going to help you carry out a fate some ancient Oracle had written in stone, then I have to know whether or not I should guard my mind from your drones."

"Drones?" Nicholas looks amused.

"Just answer me," I repeat.

"Well… I don't really mean to…" Nicholas begins to look uncomfortable.

"Aha! I knew it! You've been spying on me this whole time!" I exclaim like it is the greatest scientific discovery in the world.

"Not on purpose. It's like daydreaming. I don't realize I'm doing it, but then my mind starts to wander, and I hear things," Nicholas' long hair hid his face from me, so I couldn't tell if he was blushing or not.

"That's so mean, though! Haven't you ever heard of the Constitution's Fifth Amendment right?" I playfully slap his arm.

"I told you I don't mean to. And your thoughts are so _loud_. They're practically yelling in my mind." Nicholas is _seriously_ good at putting the other person to shame.

"Wait. I'm good at putting the other person to shame?" Nicholas says incredulously.

"Quit doing that!" I whine.

"I'll try to, if it means that much to you."

"Thanks," I say with my head in my hands. So it turns out that I am not saved. Nicholas had heard every thought about him that I had from the very beginning.

"Relax, it's not like I'm gonna hold it against you," Nicholas pats me on the back, electric sparks jumping around wherever his hand touches my shirt.

"Geez. Thanks," I mutter.

"If it were Iggy though…" Nicholas muses.

"I'd never hear the end of it," I say grumpily.

Nicholas chuckles.

"Is it just me? Or can you read everyone's minds?" I ask.

"It's everyone," Nicholas replies.

"You know what? You could work as an interrogator for the government, or the police. Or, you could be a human lie detector," I suggested.

"Sure…" Nicholas says.

"Are you going to explain the pictures now?" I tap my foot impatiently.

"Well, I told you that I'm the manager of this freak show," Nicholas begins.

"Yeah. And…" I prompt him.

"So naturally, I would have to know the most out of all of the people involved in the prophecy. The Book contains some of that knowledge, but there're other things, too. Those, I get from visions, dreams, and other things that make me question my sanity," Nicholas smiles a little.

"Like, voices in your head?"

"I guess you could say that. They tell me things or show me snapshots of the future, but they're really hard to hold on to, so I have to write them down or draw the scene before they fade," Nicholas explains. "Sorry if they scared you before."

"Oh, no big deal. You were only trying to not mess up divine providence, that's all," I say with a brush of my hand.

Nicholas doesn't say anything back for a while. He turns passive again, thinking about something that I would never be able to read.

"You could, actually," he says suddenly.

"Really?" I ask him, knowing he was answering one of my thoughts.

"Yeah, you just have to get the hang of The Book. Then, you can summon any power that you think will help you fulfill your duty," Nicholas says.

"Summon?"

"Like wings. We're supposed to have those at the end."

"Wings? You've got to be kidding me! When? That sounds amazing!" I get excited. I would be able to fly! Take that, Star!

"Later. Near the end of the prophecy," Nicholas promises.

"Will I be able to read your mind, too?" I ask him.

"Soon. All of us involved in the prophecy have to stay connected somehow. Once the connections are made and you know how to tap into them, you'll be able to," Nicholas says.

"That sounds cool. Can you teach me?" I ask him. I really want to become telepathic. Then, I'll know about all of Nudge and Angel's plots before I fall into them.

Nicholas steps closer to me. Only a few inches separated us. My heart is about to jump out of my throat. He smiles down at me and whispers, "You have to make the connection first, and then I'll teach you."

He starts leaning down, closing the distance between us. I feel really hyper inside. _Oh my gosh, Angel and Nudge are gonna freak!_

Then suddenly, a blinding flash of light pierces my skull. I see nothing but white light. A claustrophobic buzzing escalates in volume. I press my hands to my ears, trying to close the sound out, and then I realize that it's coming from inside my head. I shut my eyes against the light, but it's still printed on the inside of my eyelids. The light starts to move around. It jumps up and down across my brain, making my head pound with excruciating pain. Static electricity crackles wherever it lands.

I forget where I am, what I'm doing. I feel nothing except the punches of light. My knees buckle of their own accord.

"Max? Max?" Nicholas' voice sounds distant and muffled, like he is a sea away. He feels my forehead for a fever, and blue fire dances across my skin where his skin met mine.

I don't realize I've been crying until I taste the salt on my tongue. "Make it stop. _Make it stop_. The light, the drums, oh god…"

"Max, are you okay?" Nicholas sounds concerned.

_Pound. Pound. Pound_.

All of a sudden, Nicholas jerks his head back like he had been punched. Soon, he's gripping his head like it's going to crack open, just like I am doing. Unlike me, though, he doesn't make a sound. I would almost say that things like this happen too often for him to be fazed by it.

"Not this again…" Nicholas mutters to himself. "What'd I do wrong this time?"

_Wrong? This headache is punishment?_

The thrumming and buzzing continue until I can't take it anymore. I leap up from the floor and run, screams being ripped from my throat, to the other side of the room. I don't know why I did it. It was like something other than my own self was controlling my body. The actual pain of the headache didn't scare me that much; it was this – knowing that I'm not in control of myself.

After I stay there for a while, the light dims and the drums fade away. I shake my head to clear it and look around.

_What the _bleep_ just happened?_

Nicholas lets out a weak breath from where he's sitting and rests his elbows on his knees. He leans his head back.

"You alright?" Nicholas asks me.

"Yeah. I think I'm fine now. What about you?" I absently touch the sides of my head, where the pain had been earlier.

"Nothing that I can't deal with," Nicholas says grimly.

"What was that?" I say shakily.

"Oh, that'll happen from time to time…" Nicholas closes up again. I know he's hiding something from me once again.

I hear footsteps thundering up the stairs. The door slams open.

"What's going on in here? I heard screams," Iggy says, panting. Both he and Lissa look concerned.

"Everything's fine," Nicholas says. He gets up, walking over to me and offering a hand to help me up.

I take it. Another pulse of electricity sizzles across the point of contact. The embarrassing ice scene dances through my mind, and then another flash of white light. The drum beats draw closer and closer. I'm about to pull myself up, but I collapse again and hold my head in my hands.

"No, no, no… It's coming back… It's coming back…" I moan.

"Max, Max? What's coming back?" Lissa's voice drifts faintly over me. I feel her presence over me, but I don't have the strength to look up. The unbearable pain of the headache wraps around my skull.

"Arrrrgh!" I scream out.

_Funny. Mrs. Tricott doesn't bother coming up to see what the entire ruckus is about. It really makes me wonder if things like this happen frequently to Nicholas_…

Iggy whispers something to Nicholas. I feel his hand trailing out of mine and his footsteps moving back to the other side of the room. Almost immediately, the headache subsides and my mind clears.

"Things worse than that will happen if you're going to help us fulfill a _fate_," Lissa says quietly to me. She brushes a few strands of hair that had fallen in front of my face behind my ear with a feather light touch.

"What The Book says will happen, we have to carry out," Iggy chimes in.

"Like what? Surely The Book won't ask us to jump off a cliff, will it?" I ask him.

"No, but stuff like Nudge getting kidnapped by the 'district men' _will_ have to be followed through with," Nicholas says tightly.

Everything around me stops. Every tiny sound becomes magnified in my ears. _No. That can't happen._ Why do I have to follow a stupid fate if it means letting one of my best friends get captured by a group of evil psychopaths?

"Well then," I push myself off the floor and storm to the wide open door. "I quit."

"What? What do you mean by that?" Nicholas starts getting mad.

"I may be 'the one', but I didn't ask for this. I am being forced to follow instructions in a stupid book, and I won't. Not with the headaches, and especially not if The Book says that I have to let one of my friends get taken by the very people we are supposed to be fighting against, then I refuse. I _defy_ The Book," I say as I walk out the door and slam it behind me.

"Max, you can't say that!" Nicholas calls after me.

"Yes I can. This is a free country, and I can choose to quit being 'the one' if I want to!" I say through the closed door.

As I run down the stairs to get my things and call my Mom to tell her that I'm coming home, I hear (with my extraordinary hearing) the pages of, undoubtedly, The Book rustle and three voices whispering.

"Dude, this is baaad…" Iggy says.

"What the heck? This can't be happening!" Nicholas exclaims.

"I think something is seriously wrong…" Lissa says meekly.

"Ya think?" Iggy says back.

"They can't just disappear! The words of The Book can't just vanish!" Nicholas is really getting worked up.

"Dude, you seriously screwed this up with Max," Iggy says again. "You're messing with fate."

"How can every single page turn blank?" Nicholas seems to ignoring his friend.

"Wait! I think I see something!" Lissa suddenly says.

"_And the one will out the door, forlornly going to an unknown fate_…"

* * *

**A/N:**

**Folding Turtles: Oh, ho, ho! Hey, Nicholas! Can you say rejected? **

**Fang: Rrrrrrr... {shakes a menacing fist at me}**

**Folding Turtles: Well, you got the first part right.**

**Fang: {lunges in anger at me}**

**Max: Do I hear someone else calling my potential-crush "Nicholas"?**

**Folding Turtles: {as Fang is chasing the stressed-out writer around the house to exact his wrathful revenge} Hey, cool it, Nicholas! It was a joke! Oh no! He's gaining on me!**

**Max: Oh, that is it! {joins Fang in chasing the harried author} No one else calls him Nicholas except for me!**

**Folding Turtles: Hey, Max! Can you say super-clingy?**

**Max: Ssssss... {pulls up her jacket sleeves}**

**Folding Turtles: You know, it's strange. Neither one of you lovebirds have gotten past the first sound.**

**Max and Fang: You will fear us! Bwah ha ha ha! **

**Folding Turtles: {gulp} I have really got to learn to keep my big mouth shut. {runs away into the random sunset that just suddenly appeared out of nowhere, even though it's high noon right now}**

**Folding Turtles out! ;)**

**Dr. Gunther-hagen: Hey, you two little mutant punks! I want Fang's DNA so I can be immortal! {sob} And I want my evil laugh back.**

**Gazzy: End I vant ze Sneecker Bahrs! Hee hee hee...**

**I said, Folding Turtles out! ;)**

**{silence}**


	17. Cue the Awwwws

As I get ready for bed tonight, I think about everything that has happened while I was at Nick's house. It's too bizarre – all of the stuff about The Book, the prophecy, the "district men", his vision-drawings, The Book suddenly wiped clean of words at the end… And then, how he insisted that Nudge is going to get kidnapped by the very people the prophecy says we have fight against. I won't let that happen. I make a promise to myself to disobey the prophecy and its lies until everyone is safe.

I don't know if I should tell Nudge or not tomorrow. Since Nick seemed pretty confident that it's going to happen, maybe I should, just to warn her. But on the other hand, she might get freaked out. Or, the worst-case scenario, she actually becomes _more_ interested in the prophecy.

I decide that I am going to distance myself from the intrigues of The Book. Nothing wonderfully good has come out of being involved with it yet. So far, all it's done is make me fall on the ice, potentially put the "district men" on my track and one of best friends in jeopardy, and give me piercing headaches and electric shocks whenever Nick gets close to me or touches me.

That's another thing – _the headaches_.

I have absolutely no idea what the cause behind them is, but it appears that I'm not the only one who got them. Nick did, too, and judging by what he let slip this afternoon, gets them quite frequently. Maybe we're both stressed out too much.

_Whatever_. I yawn and crawl into my covers. The next thing I know, it's morning, I get ready for school, and I'm on the bus with Nick next to me.

The tension between us is so thick that I can cut it with a knife. Nick must be extremely irked that I refused to play along with his stupid prophecy game. Especially now that I know everything about it, too.

We don't say a word to each other for the whole ride. I look out the window and count the passing trees and try to keep my mind as blank as possible so Nick can't read anything. I can feel Iggy and Lissa's glares boring holes into the back of my head, but I don't pay them any mind. They must be fuming, too.

When I finally get off the bus, Nudge and Angel are there to greet me. They both have the goofiest, widest grins on their faces. Nudge immediately pummels me with questions.

"So, how'd it go? Did anything happen, you know, between you and _Ni-cho-las_?" she pronounces each syllable of his name with a pause in between, getting on my nerves.

The three of us walk through the school and down the hallway. Nick and his two friends are nowhere to be seen.

I tense and assume a scary, warrior-looking face. "_Fine_. And nothing happened between me and Nick."

Angel and Nudge stare at me in shock, like I had just slapped them both. "You call him Nick now." Angel notices.

I pause. She is right. "Yeah… So…"

"Alright, what happened?" Nudge walks in front of me, blocking my way. She cocks her hip to one side and rests her books on it.

"Nothing," I say, pushing past her. "I'm fine. And I'd rather not talk about it."

"Come on, Max. There's no need to be shy," Angel speeds up to catch up with me.

I don't say anything. When I'm about to duck into my first hour class, Theater, I say to Nudge with premonition shading my voice, "Watch out for tall men in suits claiming they're from the district."

"Why?" Nudge looks really confused.

I bite the inside of my mouth. "Um… Just be careful. Don't talk to them, and trust anything they say to you."

"Okay…" Nudge and Angel back out of the Theater room to go their own classes. They have a minute before the bell rings. Nudge stares at me over her shoulder like I've completely lost my mind.

Maybe I have. I should _never_ have fallen for the load of hogwash about The Book, and me being "the one", and then agreeing to go over to Nick's house to learn more about the prophecy. I was a fool, and now I'm feeling the repercussions.

I was hoping that because of our blowup yesterday, that Nick would choose somewhere else to sit, but then he came in and sat down right next to me like nothing had even happened. I looked furtively at him a couple times. His expression was one of sorrow and disappointment. It seems like he has gotten over my refusal to follow The Book.

Mrs. White is about to start class, and I glance at Nick one last time to make sure he isn't mad at me, but this time, he meets my gaze. And holds it. And something within the depths of his dark eyes pulls at me with such remorse and longing that my stomach suddenly feels tingly. It is like he's trying to say sorry – and then something else. I rip my eyes away first and let my hair cascade over one shoulder so that it forms a curtain between us.

Theater goes by, and then French and Trigonometry. Angel was smart enough to not pester me about Nick during Trig, although she did try to get me to talk to him by sending me signals.

I am packing my stuff up at the end of class. Nick is the first person to brush his way out of the classroom. He drops a slip of paper folded into quarters on his way. I quickly cover it with my hand so Angel wouldn't see it.

Star follows Nick out of Trig. Angel stands up, waiting for me.

"Go ahead, Angel," I tell her.

"You don't want me to wait for you?" Angel asks me.

"Yeah, I'm fine. I'll see you in Comm. Arts," I try to smile.

"Okay." And then I am the only person left in the room. I wait a few seconds longer to make sure that Angel is far enough down the hallway before I push open the classroom door and make my way into the jumbled hallway.

I take a detour to Mrs. Merrill's room, ensuring that I wouldn't bump into Angel or Nudge. I drift to the right side of the hallway, almost brushing against it. Then, I tentatively open Nick's note and read it. A few sentences are written in a hasty script:

_Sorry for yesterday. I didn't mean to freak you out. Meet me for lunch at that one table in the back corner. I need to talk to you about some things_.

As much as I have a grudge against Nick, I am still curious about what he's going to say. That's my one weak spot. I have to know the truth.

When I enter the Comm. Arts room and take my usual seat, Nudge bounces over to me and opens her mouth, about to ask a question – probably about Nick. Angel looks at her and shakes her head. Nudge abruptly shuts it and asks me instead, "You know the office referral the one Ivy sub threatened me with?"

"Yeah?" I reply.

"Turns out, she lied. She actually did send one to the office. A bunch of other people got referrals, too," Nudge says. "And then, when Mrs. Merrill got back, the principal had to talk to her about them, and I heard some people say that she was so annoyed with the sub's reports that she tore up all of them."

If this is Nudge's best attempt to cheer me up, it isn't working too well.

"That's great," I say without a trace of enthusiasm.

"So I bet The Prune is in trouble now," Nudge grins.

"Even better," I say dully.

"Please take your seats! The bell is about to ring!" Mrs. Merrill calls out over the class.

No one quiets down, but they slowly shuffle to their desks and sit down regretfully. I look across the classroom to Nick and Iggy. Nick looks at me in a way that asks, "Remember?"

I nod almost imperceptibly, and he turns to face the front of the classroom.

Comm. Arts flies by. We don't do much.

Mrs. Merrill tried to get us to read and analyze one of Poe's most famous short stories, _The Imp of the Perverse_. It didn't work out very well. Our classmates' vocabularies seemed to be as big as a pea. They whined to the teacher that they didn't understand anything. Mrs. Merrill told them to search up what they don't know in one of the class dictionaries. Some of them actually listened and lugged the huge dictionaries back to their desks, but no one used them. They pretended to look something up, and ten minutes later, the class went back to complaining about the difficulty of the text.

Mrs. Merrill got kinda annoyed and snapped at the class, "I am not an answer desk. If you do not understand something, try to figure it out _yourselves_ first by using the resources available in the classroom. If you cannot comprehend the text then, collaborate with one of your peers and put your heads together. If one person you ask does not provide adequate information, go to at least two more. If you _still_ do not understand the text, then you may come up and ask me, but not until you have exhausted every possible resource in this room, understand?"

A few of our classmates looked at each other with mischievous grins when she said the part about asking each other. Of course, the dictionaries were bypassed, and everyone went to go talk with their friends. Mrs. Merrill must not have foreseen this turn of events.

About fifteen minutes of nonsense chatter, Mrs. Merrill announced to the class, "As it seems that none of you have the thinking capacities to work through such an acclaimed story, I will accept questions now – only thoughtful questions, though – high-level _thinking_ questions. It appears that we are all in dire need of exercising _that_ ability."

So of course, in the end, Mrs. Merrill basically explained the whole story to us while we all diligently wrote down what she said. She looked exasperated by the end of class. I would be, too, if I was she and I had to deal with a class that evil.

I am standing in front of my locker, putting my combination into the lock. Then, I feel a cool breath behind me, and I turn around.

"Oh. It's you," I say when I see who had sneaked up on me.

"Hi to you, too," Nick says. "Remember to meet me."

"Is Iggy and Lissa going to be there, too? Should I bring Nudge and Angel along with me again?" I ask him. "Because if this is about that stupid book, I'm not interested. I don't want anything to do with _it_."

Nick looks like I just punched him in the gut. His obsidian eyes are less like arrowhead now, and more like black teardrops. "No."

"_No_ to what? Iggy and Lissa or Nudge and Angel?" I open my locker and swap books for History and Science.

"Both. I need to talk to you in private," Nick says without flinching.

My heart jumps up in my throat. My hands freeze over my Science textbook. I put up a defensive wall of sarcasm to guard my emotions. "Oh yeah. And the last time you did that, it turned out _so_ well."

"Max, this is important. Please come, okay? I've said I'm sorry," Nicholas pleads.

"One word doesn't fix everything," I say without looking at him. I take an interminable amount of time to arrange my books, stalling.

Nick sighs and leaves me alone. Once I'm sure he's clear of this hallway, I slam my locker and spin the lock. Angel and Nudge are by Angel's locker down at the other end. They are gaping at me. I walk to them and say in a carefully measured voice, "I'm not gonna be joining you guys for lunch today."

"Why? Hey, I get it that we might've gone a little overboard before, but you don't have to hate us and isolate yourself," Nudge wraps an arm buddy-style around my shoulders.

"Don't worry," I clarify. "I don't hate any of you. There's just been a slight change of plans."

"What do you mean?" Angel asks me.

"It's… um…" We walk into the cafeteria, and I take off for the table in the back table that Nick had told me to meet him at. "See you guys in History!"

"Max?" Nudge calls after me, but I don't turn around.

Thankfully, they don't follow me, either. I set my things down next to me. Nick is already here, sitting across the table from me. He has the most charismatic, lopsided smile on his face, and I'm sure he can hear my blood rushing unnaturally fast through my veins and the flutter of my heart.

_No, Max. Stay focused. He wouldn't care if evil megalomaniacs took your friend_.

"Oh, so you decided to not blow me off," he says. The Book is nowhere in sight. He hadn't lied.

"I don't usually like to keep people guessing, Nick," I say accusingly.

"You're so independent, Max, and so strong-willed. You won't let anyone tell you what to do, and you won't follow orders without thinking first," Nick says admiringly.

I narrow my eyes. "What are you trying to say?"

"I think I should follow your example. It really _isn't_ quite right to be a mindless minion." Nick sure is drawing this out.

"Of course it isn't. You have to make choices for yourself, and if you make a wrong one and you mess up, then you learn the next time and don't make the same mistake," I say like it's the most obvious thing in the world.

"I agree. So from now on, I'm not going to follow my dictated fate, no matter how much regard I've held it with in the past. I'm breaking free," Nick says quietly, but dramatically. He starts leaning closer, and I feel like we're the only two people in the whole world. The rest of the cafeteria begins to fade away. My heart races, and I feel like a cage full of excited birds is about to explode.

Then, I remember. _The headaches_. _The shocks_. I brace myself for an onslaught of pain.

But they never come. I hold my breath. _Why is it different this time?_

"I guess I've already made my decision when I first met you, but I haven't allowed my choice to become as potent as it is now – not as decisive. I shouldn't have become so friendly to you, maybe then I wouldn't have become so attached," Nick says.

I snort derisively. "You call _that_ 'friendly'?"

Nick ignores my question. "But I can't change the past now. Max?" Nick takes my hand. Nothing but cool skin meets my palm. No electric jolts. No thundering headaches.

I feel like I'm on the verge of a monumental tipping point. "Yeah?" I ask breathlessly.

Nick smiles in a heartbreaking way. "I've liked you from the time we met. Will you go out with me?"

My heart stops. The next breath catches in my throat. If I were witnessing this happening to someone other than myself, I'd probably laugh. I mean, eighth graders aren't very creative or suave with they way they ask girls out. But since this is all happening to me, I think it's the sweetest thing ever, and I throw myself across the table and hug him.

_I really hope the teachers didn't see that… Heh heh heh… Or Angel and Nudge for that matter…_

"Yes, Nicholas. Yes."

_What are you doing? You didn't even think. This isn't rational at all. This guy is the enemy, and now you're going to go out with him? And plus, he's going to distract you from your schoolwork, and if Star beats you on a test…_

_Loosen up, Max. You're starting to sound like Angel. This is a great thing. You've just found out that you do have a crush on Nicholas, and he asked you out! You're finally going to have some fun in your life!_

I'm starting to feel like I have two voices in my head – you know, the classic angel and devil deal.

I can already hear Iggy's voice in my head, "Oh Max, the loose miss. I see you are quite fickle. One minute you hate the guy, and the next, you're plastered all over him."

_Shut up, mental-Iggy._

Nicholas snickers. I release him and I suddenly remember that he can read my mind. I completely forgot about that in the heat of the moment.

_Come on, Max. What were you thinking? "Loose?" So 1820s_.

_Curse it. Why do I have to have such an overactive imagination?_

_Drat. Drat. Drat_.

Nicholas still has the remnants of a chuckle on his face when he asks me, "You really don't know anything? Do you? I basically asked you out in a Victorian-England kind of way, and you think that's 'heat'?"

"Shut up," I slap his arm and duck my head down so he can't see me blush.

Nicholas takes my hand again under the table.

"And Nicholas, I think Iggy's influence is spreading to you," I say.

For the rest of lunch, we sit there and eat, holding hands under the table.

No headaches for either one of us as far as I can tell.

No electric currents.

Just us.

And now I am the happiest person in the world.

**A/N: There's only going to be one or two more chapters, and then Prophecy will have reached its end. {sob} But hold on tight, 'cause the ride isn't over just yet. **

**Folding Turtles out! **

**;)**


	18. Fini (False Alert)

I float out of my seat when the principal dismisses the section of the cafeteria that Nicholas and I were sitting at. It seems too good to be true. How could someone like _Nicholas_, in all his cool, suave awesome-ness, possibly fall for a member of the nerd gang like me? And then all that stuff he had told me about going against the grain of fate because he liked me, what was that all about? I guess that even though I'm his girlfriend now, not much is going to be explained. But no matter, an opportunity like this doesn't come to me every day, unlike those fickle cheerleaders, so I'm going to make the most of it while I can – even if Nicholas' motives are still unclear right now.

If this were a movie, some kind of happy, light music would come one right now. Nicholas and I would be silhouetted against a brilliant scarlet sunset. We would walk into the sun. My long bridal veil would drift out behind me. Translucent laughter would lace itself through the music. The words: _And they lived happily ever after_… would fade onto the screen.

I sigh. Nicholas looks at me strangely; he had probably seen the scene that had just gone through my mind. But I don't mind.

_If you're gonna date me, Nicholas, you'd better start getting used to this_.

We walk to World History together. I ignore all the stares that we receive from passersby. Gosh, it's like you become a couple and everyone has to start talking. Huh. But even I'm still getting used to the idea.

Out of the blue, Nicholas snickers.

"What?" I look at him.

He lets his gaze drift behind us. I follow his line of sight. _Facepalm_.

Angel and Nudge catch me looking, and they start waving frantically. Nudge tilts her fedora towards Nicholas. Angel hides a giggle behind her World History binder. For some unknown reason, nobody even cares about this performance. I guess depends on how out of the ordinary certain behaviors are.

Wait, now that I think about it, _offense_! It's not peculiar for my two best friends to act like psychopaths, but it _is_ shocking that I have a beau? I mean, I may be a star student and all, but that doesn't mean I don't have a social life!

Nicholas jabs me in the shoulder. He had that achingly lopsided smile on again. "Beau? Max, the eighteenth century wants their phrase back."

I reach out to swat his finger away. "Hey, I thought you promised me that you wouldn't do random mind searches on me!"

"I can't help it!" Nicholas protests.

I roll my eyes.

"Max! Wait up!" I hear Nudge call out to me. There are some scuffles and shuffles as the other kids make way for a trampling Nudge and foolishly grinning Angel.

I prod Nicholas' arm. "Walk faster. Nudge and Angel are after me."

"They're your friends. Of course they'd be after you once they see you walking around with the school's hottest boy on your arm." Nicholas' smile is just barely visible, a puppet being pulled by hair-thin strings.

I slap him playfully. "Don't flatter yourself." But of course, my blush gives me away.

"Max!" Nudge yells again. Oh God, she is _really_ close now.

"You're gonna have to explain me and lunch to them sometime," Nicholas points out, sniffing out my fear.

"Sometime can be later," I grumble. I look around to see how far from the History room we are. Darn it. Still at least seventy feet away.

"You've got to face your fears," Nicholas says. To my mortification, he actually slows down and lets the few precious people standing between us and _the enemy_ – Nudge and Angel and their nose for gossip – to flow past us.

"Nicholas…" I whine, tugging at his sleeve. I notice that it cuts off fashionably a few inches above his elbow, the hem meticulously frayed. His olive-toned, sun-soaked skin ripples with muscle underneath.

Too late, I catch myself thinking these things. _Oh no_…

Pretty soon, I look up and see Nicholas, grinning off into the distance. His long, raven-finger bangs don't quite cover up the incrimination evidence. "I promise to not listen in to your thoughts", my _bleep_. Nicholas is still a skilled liar, I see.

To make it worse, Angel and Nudge are by my side. Angel is waving at me like, "Hi! Did you miss me?" Nudge is jumping up and down from excitement. She has one hand on top of her fedora to prevent it from falling off.

"We're probably going to get our quizzes back in History, and I'm already nervous enough, so _please_ don't ask me about…" I begin.

"Did you make up with _Nicholas_?" Nudge squeals. Angel is nodding furiously, willing me to say yes.

_Does Nudge still have to emphasize his name like that?_

"Where were you at lunch? We missed you…" Angel perks up.

If only my friends were guys, then I could duck into the girls' bathroom and put off this press conference for a few more hours.

Nicholas suddenly stops. He looks devilishly at me, and then ducks into the nearest boys' bathroom. When he passes me, he whispers, "Have fun at the press conference."

"Where are you going?" I hiss. "If I'm going down, I'm bringing you with me."

"Suit yourself. You can follow me in if you want to, but I think that would put your creep factor past Stars. Plus, the school probably looks down on that sort of behavior." Nicholas winks at me, and then disappears.

A furious heat rushes to my cheeks. Something Nicholas said to Star before returns like a ghost to my mind, "Are you saying that you want to read a guy's diary?" Did he really think that I am the kind of person who would do that? It's possible if I was one of those overzealous fangirls/cheerleaders, but I'm not.

"Max, you're blushing! Awww…" Nudge coos. "Alright, you _have_ to tell us everything that happened!"

"Can you just give it a break? I'm… And the quiz…" I stutter, not sure how I should get my friends off my back.

Something clicks in Angel's mind. I see the revelation spreading like a plague, in the form of a grin, across her face. "There's only one thing that could make our Max act so shy. Only one thing that would make a warrior like her turn sappy."

I say defensively, "I have _not_ turned sappy. That's ridiculous!"

Nudge's eyes brighten as she catches on to what Angel is suggesting. "You don't think…"

I sigh. "Alright, alright. _Yes_. Nicholas asked me out. And I said yes. It's not a big deal, okay?"

Nudge attacks me in a hug. "That's great. I knew the day would come when this tough girl gets a life beyond triangles and atoms."

Angel is beaming, too. I am still stunned by Nudge's reaction. Still stuck in her hug. My friends are way overacting. They're acting like I've found my true love – the one I'll be walking down the aisle to on my wedding day.

_Here comes the bride, all dressed in white_…

No. I will never, ever, wear one of those gigantic, white, puffy wedding gowns. That would horrifically painful. Remind me in about ten years to never let Angel and Nudge be in charge of my wedding wardrobe, hair, or makeup. I can already imagine the kinds of fluffy white/pink froufrou they'll come up with.

_Whoa, Max. You are _way_ off topic. Focus_.

The three of us walk into the World History classroom. Nicholas is already seated beside my empty chair. He looks like his typical, emotionless self. Angel gasps like she had suddenly remembered something.

"What?" I ask her warily.

"Now we can _finally_ go!" Angel exclaims.

Mr. Colbert is sitting behind his desk, happily drinking a cup of coffee. A pile of papers sits dejectedly beside his laptop. Our quizzes. I know I don't have to worry too much, though. Mr. Colbert likes Angel and me, 'cuz we actually do the reading.

"Go where?" I ask her, moving to my chair. Truth to be told, I actually can't wait to be sitting by Nicholas' side again. The thought sends a flurry of movement through my stomach.

Nudge rolls her eyes. "God, Max. Are you a recluse? Not 'where', but what. Think about today's date. Then, add a week."

_Today is February 8__th__, so in a week… Oh snap. I know where this is going_.

I glance nervously at Nicholas out of the corners of my eyes. He doesn't notice.

"You'll finally have a date for the Valentines' Day dance! When we all go this year, we'll finally not look like complete dorks!" Nudge says happily.

"_What?_ Who said I'm going to the dance? And who said Nicholas is gonna ask me?" I interrogate her.

Angel slaps my arm as we sit down. "Don't be silly. Of course he'll ask you. And we, as your friends, are obligated to make you to social events even if we have to drag you there under threat of a machete."

Nicholas looks at us, eyebrows raised.

I fume silently. "I am _not_ going to participate in such a mediocre gala while wearing clothes that are demeaning to teenage girls of our age." I find myself gripping my binder, my nails digging into the cheap plastic.

Nicholas chuckles softly to himself at my passionate speech. _Of course_…

"Come on, Max. You need to loosen up," Nudge says to me.

_Didn't I say the same thing to Angel a few days ago?_

When I don't respond, Angel pats my arm and says, "And that's another thing. We _are_ going to take you dress shopping this weekend. You are going to be pretty, for once in your life."

_Please don't let Angel actually own a machete. I can see a future where a lot of things go wrong in that scenario. "Ha ha ha! Science quiz! Die! Die! Die! You dare mock me with that eighty-nine now?"_

To make things even worse, Nicholas leans over and breathes a few words into my ear. "She's right. Do you want to go to the dance with me?"

I slam my head down into my arms. "God, Nicholas. Why do you have to say that _now_?"

Angel claps her hands gleefully. "So it's settled, then. Max, we're going shopping on Saturday!"

The bell rings. Mr. Colbert gets up and starts passing out our quizzes.

"Your results on the quiz were deplorable. I suggest you do the reading next time. I am very disappointed in you," he says. He certainly doesn't sound _disappointed_. In face, I'd say he's quite _happy_ with the demise of his arrogant student.

"An F!" some jock exclaims. "What?"

_Oh, get over it, you irresponsible dummy_.

"That is the grade your essay deserves," Mr. Colbert says without batting an eye.

"That's not fair!" he protests.

"That is the grade that your ill-constructed five sentences are worthy of. It is plenty fair," our teacher says cheerfully.

Mr. Colbert drops my paper on my desk. "Good work, Max. I enjoy reading your essays." He raises his voice and continues, "They really show that you've done the reading."

Angel and Nudge both seem pretty happy with their scores when they got their quizzes back.

As Mr. Colbert turns around to return papers on the other side of the room, the jock folds his quiz quickly up into a tight triangle and attaches it to his hornet-shooter. He closes one eye and takes aim. I mentally trace his trajectory… If Mr. Colbert doesn't move, the quiz is going to nail him on the back of his head. _Owie_.

Mr. Colbert doesn't even look up and says, "Put the hornet-shooter away, unless you'd like to be responsible for the whole class getting an extra reading assignment."

"Dude!" the jock's friend knocks the paper contraption down to the table. "What were you thinking? You're going to get us all more homework!"

I swear I saw the teacher smile.

"You haven't answered me yet," Nicholas whispers to me, secretly taking my hand under the table.

"What?" I know what he is talking about, but I want to stall.

"I know that you know that I'm talking about," Nicholas echoes my thoughts.

"Ugh… Yes. Of course it's yes," I roll my eyes with exaggeration.

"Cool," Nicholas says.

By this time, Mr. Colbert is finished passing out papers. He walks past the table that Angel, Nudge, Nicholas, and I are all sitting at. When he sees and me and Nicholas, he raises his eyebrows and grins. Then, he is off to the Smartboard.

I close my eyes. "Not him, too."

"Who, Mr. Colbert?" Nicholas asks me.

"It's bad enough with Angel and Nudge, but my _History teacher_?" I shake my head.

"We are quite the it-couple, aren't we?" Nicholas teases me.

"Not you, too! The disease is spreading! Quarantine, quarantine," I say flatly.

"Hmmm…" Nicholas muses. "Micholas?"

Mr. Colbert starts calibrating the board. The flunked jock takes aim with his hornet-shooter again. He lets it fly this time.

His quiz whizzes through the air. Mr. Colbert's hand flashes up. He catches the folded-up quiz in midair, while still calibrating the board. I gape in astonishment.

"Alright. I was going to show you guys a movie, but since someone has tried to assassinate my via hornet… Everyone, open your books to page two hundred and twenty-three. Read the chapter. Quiz next class. No talking!" Mr. Colbert proclaims.

The jock and his friend are engaged in a slapping war while the rest of the class groans. Mr. Colbert goes back to his desk and resumes drinking his coffee with pleasure.

While we read, Nicholas and I still hold hands under the table. I can't quite explain it, but doing so makes me feel oddly comforted, like some part of me is complete. Maybe he really is the one – my one true love. But come on. Who finds their soul mate in the _eighth freaking grade_?

Mr. Colbert flickers his gaze towards Nicholas and me occasionally. I can't figure out what tipped off, but now it seems that he's on our trail. _Great_. No relationship passes by from the ask-out to the break-up without being noticed by Mr. Colbert. I was hoping to fly under the radar, but that's not gonna happen.

"Max?" Nicholas whispers to me using out sub-normal volume.

"Yeah?" I reply, knowing no one is going to hear us.

"You wanna go somewhere this afternoon?" he asks me, looking shockingly amazing with a small smile on his face an his onyx gems pulling at my heartstrings.

"Sure." My pulse speeds us.

"Meet me by the gum tree after you drop your stuff off."

"Okay," I swoon.

"Are you gonna tell your Mom?"

"Prob'ly not."

"Alright."

"Wait, you still remember the gum tree?"

"Of course. _You_ told me."

Awww… How sweet…

And of course, Nicholas just _has_ to have a photographic memory like me.

You know what? Screw the prophecy and The Book and all these things I have to do so the "district men" don't absolutely destroy humanity by using the powers locked inside Nicholas' little brown book. I realize this is a selfish thing to think, but my life is great right now, and I don't want to mess it up. I'm dating Nicholas, this afternoon is going to be our first date, and all of my friends and I are going to the dance in a few days. I may not be the kind of girl who just totally loves going to dances and fluffing herself up, but I still think it's going to be fun. The only cloud I see on the horizon is the inevitable shopping trip Nudge and Angel are going to drag me on by lashing me inside a straitjacket. Heh, heh, heh...

But who cares? This is my life, and no brown book can tell me otherwise. Don't tell Nicholas I said that.

"I heard that!" Nicholas protests.

"Aw, why do you keep doing that?" I groan.

And Nicholas says, "Because I can."

* * *

**A/N: And that's the end! I know it kinda leaves you hanging - very _Nevermore_. Anyway, I'm working on another story. I'll post it in a couple of weeks. So... be watching for that. **

**But, for now:**

**Folding Turtles, out! ;)**


	19. Kookaburra

**A/N: I am SO sorry about the whole disappearing-without-truly-finishing-this-story thing. I was kinda busy, and I wasn't sure if I should keep updating, and I guess I got kinda jaded, too. But anyway, I will continue, and this time, I will not stop updating until the end is truly upon us! A HUGE thank-you to all the reviewers who slapped some sense into me and rejuvenated my desire to continue posting! **

**Folding Turtles, out! ;)**

* * *

I fly through Science in anticipation. I mess up twice on the order of the atomic theories. I silently scold myself for not reading over the textbook and the notes and memorizing each word of both like I normally do. I am getting out of it…

The ride home on the bus is much of the same thing. I only vaguely register everything that's going on around me. The things Nicholas says to me aren't being retained in my mind. I absolutely cannot wait until the bus drops me off so I rush to the gum tree.

The kookaburra song suddenly pops into my head. Nicholas is making menial small talk, so it's perfectly fine if I'm not really listening. Just don't tell him that.

_Kookaburra sits in the old gum tree_

_Merry, merry king of the bush is he_

_Laugh, kookaburra! Laugh kookaburra!_

I start chuckling, imagining this fat, puffed-up bird smacking on a piece of gum. A furry bush that resembles a more spherical version of the Lorax is underneath it, looking up with saucer-sized eyes.

I can feel Iggy and Lissa staring at me from their seats behind me. Nicholas asks me accusingly, "Max, were you even listening to a word I was saying?"

I try to swat the cute, puffy kookaburra out of my mind. "Yeah. Sure. It was about the…" I drift off, because I do not have a clue as to what he was saying to me.

_You know, I was really much better at paying attention and focusing before Nicholas stepped so suavely into my life._

The bus lurches to a full stop. The doors whoosh open. I move to get my things together, as does Nicholas and his two friends. As I sling my backpack over one shoulder, Nicholas leans in super close to me and whispers in my ear, "Don't try lying to me. I can tell." And he taps his forehead with a slight smirk. "And remember the gum tree."

"How could I ever forget?" I return.

We exit the bus and start walking to our respective houses. I don't say anything, and neither does Nicholas. I think I may have actually gotten away with it this time, and then Nicholas says to me just before I'm about to turn onto my driveway, "I'm curious… In that scenario, was I supposed to the bush-ball or the kookaburra?"

"I honestly don't know," I say truthfully, shriveling up inside because he had seen my mind _again_, and then I start blabbing. Funny how Nicholas has that effect on me. "But I guess the bush-ball thing, 'cus if you were the kookaburra, it'd be kinda awkward, since the song has that one line in it that goes like…" I clamp my mouth shut, realizing what I am saying.

Nicholas scrunches his eyebrows together in it in confusion. Clearly, no one except for _moi_ knows children's songs by heart. _Fantastic._ The great, almighty Maximum Ride can sing Mother Goose to kindergarteners for a living.

"See you," I say. I am on my driveway by now. I punch in the garage combination code into the keypad to unlock it.

I try to focus on something other than the last line of the kookaburra song. If I don't think it, Nicholas won't be able to read it. Then, he won't ever know what I'm talking about unless he feels like Googling "the kookaburra song" in his spare time. _I love how Google is now also a verb_. _Google. Google. Google_.

_Wait, what am I doing? _

Sadly, the more I try to not think about it, the more it keeps popping up. The garage isn't opening fast enough for me to escape Nicholas' all-seeing powers. My Mom needs to call the garage-lubricating people sometime. And pest control, especially before the spiders start coming out of hibernation. I am mortally terrified of spiders. They're like the real-life reincarnation of vampires, which I loathe, and the whole Twilight business did not make it any better. Edward is a creep.

_I'm getting off-topic, again, aren't I? Sorry 'bout that. It's Nicholas' fault. _

_Snap. I'm admitting things again. Please, please, _please_, don't let him read that one or I'll never hear the end of it._

"Wait, Max? What the heck?" Nicholas asks me when he finally reads all of this that had just passed through my mind. Thankfully, the garage is open now, and I duck inside to avoid further questioning.

_Laugh, kookaburra! Laugh, kookaburra! _

…_your life must be!_

I hate how words back in the eighteenth century had such different meanings from the meanings nowadays. I mean, the word I replaced with the dot-dot-dot-s isn't really bad in context, but it could seriously offend some people. Or make your boyfriend wonder about what it is that you're thinking.

Or in my case, _why_ I'm thinking about stuff like that.

"Mom! I'm home!" I yell.

"Maxie-poo! You're home! How was school? Do you have a lot of homework? Did you talk to your friends? What did you talk about?" Blah, blah, blah. The questions never end. She's becoming the adults in Charlie Brown.

I throw my backpack on the floor by the dining table and run upstairs. "Huh? Everything's great. I'm, uh, going out to meet a friend." It's the half-truth. My Mom would probably faint if she found out that Nicholas is more than a friend now. And things _really_ wouldn't be so hot if she knew that I feel like I've found my soul mate in eighth grade.

"Now? But you have to do your homework," my Mom calls up after me.

"I'll do it when I come back. We've already talked about this for a while, and we've already agreed to meet today." Not a lie. Not a lie. Depending, of course, on your definition of "a while".

"Who is it? I want to talk to their parents," my Mom says with concern. She really means that she needs to check that I'm not sneaking out to one of those underground teenage parties.

"Don't worry. I'll text you," I say from my bedroom. I'm frantically searching through my closet to find something nice, but still casual, to wear. All I find are tee-shirts, button-up polos, and jeans in the same nondescript faded blue wash. I scold myself for the second time today for not going on shopping sprees with Nudge and Angel when they had asked me dozens of times in the past. I don't even know _why_ the urge to change has gotten into me. I shouldn't care, but I do.

"Max, I'm not trying to hound you or anything…" _Oh really?_ "But this is last-minute, and I'm worried."

"Mom, relax. I'll be fine. I said that I'll text you, like, every fifteen minutes." I settle on a plum and white striped polo and a pair of slightly darker jeans. I tug them on quickly and throw a jacket over it so my Mom won't be able to tell that I've changed clothes. She doesn't usually notice the pants. There's no need to raise more questions.

"Max," my Mom says in a stern voice.

"Fine. Every ten minutes," I say, rushing down the stairs three at a time.

"Five," my Mom bargains.

"Meet me in the middle. Seven and a half. How's that?" I grab my cell phone from my backpack and jam it into the back pockets of my jeans.

My Mom laughs. "Okay, Max. Text me every ten minutes, and I'll be fine."

"Thanks, Mom." I smile and head out the door. Once I'm out, I congratulate myself and sprint to the gum tree. Out of the corners of my eyes, I see a shadow moving swiftly through the woods behind the houses. I think I see the sun glinting off the shadow's head, revealing a swath of golden blonde hair, but I'm not sure. It's probably one of those high-school boys going to TP some poor girl's house. I don't think about the shadow anymore.

As I near the gum tree, I see Nicholas leaning against a mailbox close by. His arms are crossed, his head down. One leg is crossed casually over the other. When he hears me running towards him, he raises his head and smiles broadly in that crooked, heartbreaking way of his.

"Max!" Nicholas exclaims.

"Hey." I slow down to a walk. I'm not panting, even though I've just sprinted about a quarter mile. Track and field, specifically running, is one of my favorite units in P.E., 'cus I'm good at it.

I unzip my jacket to let the breeze cool me down a little. It always feels better this way. Nicholas pushes off the mailbox with his back and uncrosses his arms. He reaches out to me, and I take his hand. We start walking down the sidewalk. If he noticed my costume change, he doesn't say anything.

"Where d'you wanna go?" he asks me.

"Oh! Do you want to see the pond?" I suddenly remember the neighborhood pond. "Do you have crackers or something with you? We could feed the ducks."

"Sure. Wait…" Nicholas reaches into his pockets with his other hand and digs around. He produces a few packs of saltine crackers, the kind the school gives out when it's soup day to act fancy. Even the school cafeteria has to keep up an image.

"Awesome," I say. I pull him in a different direction, towards the neighborhood pond. "Do your parents know about me?"

"Of course they do. Your mom presented you to them when we first got here," Nicholas said with a _duh_ tone inflicting his voice.

I roll my eyes. "Alright, then. Us."

"No," Nicholas admits without elaboration. "But you can't say anything, because I know your mom doesn't know."

"What? Are you scared your parents are gonna flip out, too?" I ask him.

"Not really," Nicholas looks around uncomfortably, like he'd rather not say what's on his mind.

I quit teasing him, so then of course, he _has_ to pounce at my silence.

"You may or may not think I'm like the kookaburra, hate spiders and Edward Cullen, and you blame your total lack of focus on your infatuation with me?" Nicholas asks me. The uneasiness that had passed over him moments before is gone now. He has a smile playing at the corners of his lips.

"Ugh. Give the kookaburra a break. Things were different when they wrote that song back who-knows-when. Yes, spiders are scary. Edward is a stalker. Of course I don't like him. And it's not called an 'infatuation' when we're only thirteen/fourteen," I reply.

Something rings in my back pocket. _My Mom_. I reach behind with my spare left hand and take it out. I see a new message on the home screen: _It's been 10 minutes_.

I groan and start typing a response with one hand.

_I'm still safe. No one has tried to mug me yet, or dope my water. It's all good_.

"Who's that?" Nicholas asks me. By now, we've reached the pond. The ducks are quacking around in the water. We both sit down on one of the park benches scattered around the perimeter of the pond.

"My Mom. I made her a promise that I'd text her every ten minutes, or she's gonna call the police thinking that I've been kidnapped," I reply.

The wind has died down, but I think I hear a rustle in the bushes behind the pond. I look up from my phone screen, and the shadow passes through again. _What…?_

"Did you hear that?" I ask Nicholas. The air feels eerily still. A bad feeling settles into the pit of my stomach. My eyes dart around the pond. Nothing obviously wrong has surfaced. The ducks are still quacking their hearts out.

"Yeah. I thought I was just imagining things until you asked me. What is it?" Nicholas' reply does not make me feel any better. I'm about to jump out of my skin with anxiety.

I drop my voice to the volume that only Nicholas and I use. "When I was running to the gum tree, I thought I saw a person trailing me. He has blonde hair. I think I just saw the shadow again, right now, from those bushes."

Nicholas freezes. He starts to slowly get up, pulling me with him. "Max, we have to go back. You, especially. This is not good."

"What? Do you know the shadow-master? Do you think it's one of the 'district men'?" I hiss as quietly as I can.

Nicholas opens his mouth to say something, but then a boy about our age jumps out of the bushes, holding an evil-looking ray gun thingie. Like I had thought, he has blonde hair. A devilish smile spread across his face. My heart skips a beat.

"Give me The Book, and no one gets hurt," the boy says, coming closer to us.

_Not this again. Why is everyone after Nicholas' book?_

The barrel of the ray gun seems to grow exponentially larger. All sorts of horrible things run through my vivid imagination. I think about all of the movies I had seen where aliens invade Earth, toting around ray guns. Some of them can vaporize people; others can blast a hole through their stomachs.

_Oh god, Max. Not helping_.

Nicholas hisses to me in our super-quiet voice, "Get in front of me, and very close."

I am panicking, staring at the new boy and his all-too-real ray gun. "What? So you can use me a bullet shield? Thanks a lot, Nicholas."

"Max. Just do what I say. Wings can only stretch so far, and they don't bend very comfortably to the back," Nicholas says.

I'm about to ask him for clarification again, but then a pair of glossy, raven-black wings spread out from Nicholas' shoulder blades. They extend out for about fifteen feet. The feathers shiver with life.

_What the heck?_

"Get close to me. This might work," Nicholas sounds nervous.

I am stunned, speechless. I do what he says. I can feel the heat of his unease through my back. Nicholas curls his black wings around us like a blanket. I can see each individual feather, but also the landscape outside of them, like they're translucent – tinted glass. I was sure before feathers are not see-through, so what is going on?

Nicholas lets out a breath. "It's fits. That's good. Max, these are the wings that I've learned to use to help me with fulfilling the prophecy that's written in The Book. Yes, I can fly with these, but they also make anything that I want to inside them to become invisible. Right now, that's you and me. We can see out, but no one can see us. I know this is a lot to take in right now, and I was hoping I wouldn't have to explain it to you like this, but I kinda have no choice."

"That's cool," I nod, a lump of terror in my throat.

"Don't you be playing your little tricks with me. Just hand over The Book, and I promise we'll leave you alone," the boy says outside Nicholas' wing cover.

"But we have to be quiet. My wings don't muffle sound," Nicholas warns me.

"Sure," I whisper at our volume. "Why does that boy want your book? It seems like an awful lot of people are after you."

"He's probably one of the 'district men's' cronies. They sent him out here to retrieve The Book. They're probably getting nervous. Time is nearing the end of the prophecy, and they may not have The Book, but the ending is well known to us all. They know they will be defeated. That is what fate has said," Nicholas says.

"Then why do they even try? I mean, they know they're not going to win," I say.

"But the events of the prophecy can still be changed. You remember the day when you said you refuse to follow the prophecy?"

"Yeah."

"Well, you kinda made The Book turn blank. All of the words are gone, and new ones pop up as things happen. For the first time, I have no idea what's going to happen next."

"What?" I whisper/shout.

"Things are already changing, but no matter what the 'district men' do to try to get their greedy hands on The Book, we can't let them have it. Everything else in the prophecy can be skewed whichever way, but the ending is one thing we cannot let be changed, for the sake of the world. I have no idea what they're going to do with all the power that The Book holds, but I imagine it can't be something terribly good," Nicholas says urgently.

"Do you have it with you?" I ask.

"Yes, of course," Nicholas replies.

"I know you're still here, and I know you have The Book with you. Don't make me do this the hard way. I promise if you show yourself and give it to me, I won't hurt you," the boy says, he's further away. He's still looking for us.

I hear a distant crackle as a radio comes on, in the same direction as the boy. "Dylan, what are you doing? Get us The Book! They're right there! I can't believe you let them slip under you again!"

_The district men_.

"Wait, what does he mean, 'again'?" I ask Nicholas warily.

"You know how I told you we had moved from California? Well, _Dylan_ over there tracked us down over there, and the only way to keep ourselves and The Book safe was to move here. The history between him and Iggy, Lissa, and I go back a long ways," Nicholas says, gritting his teeth.

"I saw them. There's a new girl, too. I think she's the one. But they were there one minute, and gone the next. I think they're still here, but I can't see them," Dylan says nervously, not wanting to displease his bosses.

_Great. Now they're after me, too_.

"They've learned to summon their wings – their powers? Interesting. Well, that'll make things a wee bit more difficult for us. If you had caught them the last time in California, we wouldn't have this issue, now would we?" the district men scream at Dylan.

"No, I'm sorry. Really, really, sorry," Dylan says quickly.

"Dylan, you have failed, once again. Do you wish to be terminated?" the district men say with a bored tone.

"No. I promise I'll get them. In fact, I'm looking for them now!" Dylan says.

"Give up. If their powers have kicked in, I doubt you'd be able to catch them now. Come back, and we'll regroup later," the district men say.

"Thank you. Will do." Dylan clicks the radio off and goes back into the bushes.

_Summon their wings – their powers_. _What does that mean?_

Nicholas waits a long time. I can hear the thumping of his heart and count off the beats. _One, two, three, four_… Two hundred and thirty-four beats later, Nicholas whispers to me, "Okay, I think we're safe, but we're going to stay inside my wings until we get to your house. Dylan may still be around."

I nod, the only thing I can do after witnessing everything that has just happened. We walk back to my house, still covered by Nicholas' wings.

When we're a few hundred yards from my driveway, Nicholas suddenly chuckles.

"What?" I ask him.

"Sorry about the sucky first date," he replies.

I grin. "Nah. It's fine. I just found out that my boyfriend has freaking _wings_. And that a blonde maniac is chasing after us. But, it's all good."

Nicholas retracts his black wings to let me run up to my driveway. "Max?" he says when I'm about to punch in the garage door combination.

"Huh?" I whip my head back.

"Be careful," he says, with a serious look on his face.

"Will do!" I say, and I enter my house. As soon as I step inside, though, I know I'm in a load of trouble.

"Maxine…" my Mom says, her arms crossed and her right foot tapping the floor.

"Hi, Mom," I manage a smile.

"Do you know how long ten minutes is?" she asks me.

_Oh, no. I'd completely forgotten about that_…


	20. Soda Poke

"What happened? What happened? What happened?" Nudge was bouncing up and down in her seat. I swear her fedora is going to fall off, but for some reason, all it does is flop in rhythm with her bounces.

_Boing. Boing. Boing_.

We had just come out of Comm. Arts. Nicholas is busy doing something with Lissa and Iggy, so they haven't come to the cafeteria yet. The rest of us are all waiting for the principal to _finish up with announcements already_ and release us to the lunch lines.

"Nothing especially exciting," I say as truthfully as I can. Oh _yeah_, because being hunted down by a crazy, ray-gun wielding Dylan person and then finding out Nicholas has invisibility wings is totally normal.

"Come on, _something_ must have happened. And as our only friend who has any sort of love life, you are obliged to tell us everything so we can fantasize," Nudge quit bouncing in her seat and took up the highly annoying behavior of jabbing my right arm repeatedly.

_Poke. Poke. Poke._ It's worse than a visit to the doctor's office, especially since Nudge hadn't cut her nails in a while.

I grit my teeth and withstand the jabbing. It's not like anything particularly embarrassing happened yesterday afternoon. I mean, even you know a play-by-play of my date with Nicholas. I just don't think telling Nudge and Angel about Mr. Ray Gun would help keep them safe. The less they know, the less the "district men" will want to capture them. And if they totally lose interest in Nudge, I might be able to rewrite the prophecy's whole deal about her kidnapping. Even if my plan fails, and my friends are taken hostage, the "district men" wouldn't be able to get much out of them, and The Book will remain safe from their greedy clutches.

I almost kind of wish I hadn't asked Nicholas about what his book was about. Maybe then, Dylan wouldn't have been dispatched to find Nicholas and me. The "district men" would think I am just another unenlightened girl. Maybe then, my life wouldn't have gotten so complicated. Maybe then, Nicholas and I could hang out with each other normally without having to worry about shadows chasing after us. But then again, if I hadn't gotten involved with The Book, I wouldn't have met Nicholas at all. He would have moved here nevertheless, but then he would have moved on, thinking "the one" isn't here.

That would have been a shame, indeed.

Nudge starts poking me harder. I begin to wonder if her nails would leave red welts on my skin. I close my eyes and will Nicholas and his friends to get here. Not even Nudge would dare to ask me about the details of my date if the _other party_ were here. That would be too rude, even for her.

Angel catches on to my reaction soon after and begins jabbing me from the left. I bet Nudge and Angel are grinning their face off right now. They could be interrogators for the CIA. _Feel the wrath of my pointer fingers!_

_Right poke. Left poke. Right poke. Left poke_.

Suddenly, I see (in my mind's eye, of course) Nudge dressed in a pink and black hoop skirt. She's the caller for what looks like a square dance. Angel throws me into the hokey-pokey ring and Nudge starts yelling out instructions.

"_You put your right poke in. You put your right poke out. You put your right poke in and shake it all about. You do the hokey-pokey and turn yourself around. That's what it's all about!"_

Of course, that would make sense. I know how the person felt when they invented the hokey-pokey.

"_You put your left poke in. You put your left poke out. You put your left poke in and shake it all about. You do the hokey-pokey and turn yourself around. That's what it's all about!"_

This must be why they named the hokey-_poke_y.

"Come on, Max. Tell us," Angel says in a hypnotic voice.

"Yeah, Max. Tell us," Nudge echoes.

"We promise we won't laugh," Angel says.

"And we won't tell anyone else either," Nudge adds.

"And if you tell us, we'll quit bugging you," Angel says.

"Yeah, Max. We know how much you hate being poked," Nudge says devilishly.

_They kinda remind of me Dee and Dum. _

"But if something really personal happened, you don't have to tell us," Angel says.

"Because that would be infringing your fourth amendment rights," Nudge continues.

"So if you don't say anything, we'll just assume something really personal happened," Angel says, the smile dripping from her words.

"Yeah, Max. We'll just assume," Nudge agrees.

_Okay, that's crossing the line._ My best friends have a twisted imagination. I can feel my face heating up.

_Right poke. Left poke. Right poke. Left poke_.

"Arrrgh!" I scream. The poking party stops. "If you wanna know what happened, why don't you go bug Nicholas, _not_ me?"

"Awww… You still call him _Nicholas_," Nudge says, batting her eyelashes.

My hands curl into fists by my side. "Section three, tables four and five, you may get your lunch," the principal says tiredly into the microphone.

_Thank God_. Nudge and Angel have to get their lunches now. I'm hungry, but I'll wait a bit, after they come back, so I can avoid them.

"We'll be back, Max," Nudge says and gives me a little finger wave.

"Yes, Max. We'll be back," Angel says in a foreboding tone.

_Now, they're just acting plain creepy_.

"Aren't you gonna get your lunch?" Nudge asks me.

"Um… I'll wait," I reply.

Angel and Nudge give me a weird look, but they don't say anything else. The two of them walk to one of the lunch lines and disappear among the exodus of ravenous students. I fold my arms on the table. Then, I sigh and rest my head on top of them.

"Max? Are you okay?" I hear Nicholas voice softly in front of me.

"My, what great timing you have. You left me to fend for myself against the onslaught of wolves Nudge and Angel and their endless question," I say sarcastically.

"Sorry, I had to find Iggy and Lissa. They wanted to tell me something," Nicholas says apologetically to me. Then, he faces his two friends and says a little bit louder, "Which they never did."

Iggy grins sheepishly. "Sorry, dude. I just didn't want to deal with them, either. I knew those two would be asking questions today."

I growl at him. Nicholas shoots him a glare as well. Iggy holds his hands up in surrender and says, "Please don't hurt me, O Mighty One."

"Shut up," Nicholas says, and sits down next to me.

"What do you mean, 'O Mighty One'?" I ask them curiously.

"He hasn't told you yet?" Iggy asks me, grinning like an idiot.

"No…" I glance at Nicholas, my eyebrows furrowed together.

"Shut up," Nicholas says again.

Lissa sits down across from me. Her light blue, ruffled blouse flutters a little bit with the movement. She rolls her eyes.

"Ha ha ha. Fang's getting ticked off," Iggy says, pointing.

Nicholas glares at him.

"Cut it out. We need to eat," Lissa says, acting as the voice of reason. I agree with her. My stomach growls.

"You know about his wings, right, after the Dylan-with-a-ray-gun thing?" Iggy asks me when Nicholas doesn't say anything.

Nicholas must have told them everything that happened yesterday afternoon. It makes me wonder if I am being too protective, which translates as uptight to Nudge and Angel. Nicholas doesn't seem to care an awful lot about Iggy and Lissa knowing too much. But that's because he thinks The Book is right whether it's blank or not. What's gonna happen is set in stone for him. But not for me.

"Yeah," I reply.

"And his mind-reading ability? And his weird vision-dream things?" Iggy continues.

"Of course," I say bitterly. "From experience."

"Oh really? What'd he see?" Iggy leans in. Goodness, now I have a third Angel/Nudge on my back.

Lissa smacks his arm and says, "Don't ask her that. It's rude."

Iggy retreats and says pointedly to her, "You're only saying that because Nicholas caught you thinking about…"

"La la la la la!" Lissa says, drowning out Iggy voice, even for me.

I don't think I see this right, but is Nicholas actually blushing?

"Ha ha ha. I've made everyone uncomfortable," Iggy says happily.

Lissa smacks him again.

"Okay. Back to the story," Iggy says, clapping his hands together. "So, he also has other powers, just newly developed ones. And they are freaking awesome!"

"What?" I ask.

"Oh, that's classified information," Iggy grins.

Now I smack him.

"The ladies just love me today! They're all over me!" Iggy sings.

"Shut up!" us all three say in unison.

"Ha ha ha. I'm gonna go now…" Iggy smartly backs away from the table and proceeds to the lunch line.

"Hey, Nicholas. What kind of new powers does he mean?" I face Nicholas.

"Okay, well. I'm not entirely sure why I got them, since The Book hadn't originally mentioned anything about them," Nicholas begins.

"And he should know. He practically has that thing memorized," Lissa says without fanfare.

"But after I walked you home…" here, he gets cut off again by a perky Nudge.

"We're back!" she exclaims. "And Nicholas decided to join us!"

_Facepalm_.

"Yes," I say with false sweetness. "And remember what I said before?"

"_If you wanna know what happened, why don't you go bug Nicholas, _not_ me?"_

Angel and Nudge's faces blanch. "Oh, that's alright. No, thank you," Nudge says.

I grin toothily, like a wolf that's just brought down a kill. "Oh, no. I insist."

Lissa looks at us like she has no idea what's happening.

"Really, Max," Angel says, pale. "We're fine now."

"Hee hee. That's what I thought," I say victoriously.

They set their trays down and begin to eat. Nicholas leans over to me and whispers in my ear, "Do I have permission to find out what that was all about?"

_He means reading my thoughts_.

"Sure," I agree. I bring the images to the front of my thoughts. After a few seconds, Nicholas chuckles.

Angel takes a bottle of Coke out of a pocket of her blue jacket. Nudge drops her floppy chicken finger and gasps.

"Where'd you get that? I thought the vending machine ran out this morning!"

"Oh ho ho, I took the last one," Angel says.

"You jerk! I waited in line for, like, ten minutes, and then the principal told us to get to class because they were out!" Nudge reaches out for the red plastic bottle.

Angel tries to dodge Nudge's hands, but she doesn't move fast enough. Nudge rips the Coke bottle from her hands and puts it out of Angel's reach. "Hey! Give it back! You suck!" Angel complains.

"Yes! Victory is mine!" Nudge exclaims demonically.

"I paid for that! Give it back!" Angel futilely tries to grab her Coke back.

Nudge smiles evilly, an idea forming in her head, no doubt. Angel pales further as she sees the smile creeping across Nudge's features. _Her Coke will now meet its demise._

"What's going on?" Lissa scoots slowly away from Nudge and the Coke bottle.

Iggy finally decides to come back and sees the scene in front of him. He adopts Nudge's smile's identical twin. "I know where this is going…" he says, rubbing his hands together like the Grinch.

"Nudge… You're gonna regret this, whatever you're planning to do," Angel warns her, sounding like one of those anti-tobacco preachers. _"Just one puff, and you're going to ruin your life. Your world will end, and you will end up on the streets because you've spent all your money on buying cigarettes."_

Nudge, still holding her arm away from Angel, begins to shake the bottle violently. What I don't understand is why Angel doesn't just get up and walk around to take the bottle away from her. I guess people are lazy like that.

"NOOOO!" Angel screams and lunges for the Coke bottle.

Lissa gasps and scoots herself to the farthest end of the table. She misjudges the length of the cafeteria table seats and ends up falling on her backside onto the floor. Iggy cackles with unrestrained glee. He lives for catastrophes like this. I hold my breath and lean away from the carbonated time bomb.

Nudge gives it another few good shakes and throws it at Angel. She catches it, but the damage has been done. If Angel opens up the bottle now, a coca-cola volcano will erupt. It is inevitable. Nudge claps her hands and resumes eating her rubbery chicken finger.

Angel leans away from the bottle and slowly opens up the lid a fraction of a millimeter. The drink is fizzing violently inside. Insurmountable amounts of bubbles fighting their way up. Nothing comes out. Angel sighs and relaxes her grip on the Coke bottle. At that moment, Iggy slinks up from behind her and knocks her hand that's holding the lid away from the bottle.

"No! Ahhh!" Angel screams as she tries to cap the bottle again. It's too late.

A jet of soda squirts out from the bottle and rains down on Angel, her book, her precious blue binder, and those of us in her closest vicinity, like me. Frothy brown foam gurgles out of the bottle opening and crawls down the side of the bottle towards its victims. Iggy and Nudge laugh and give each other high fives.

Angel is frantic, trying to stop the eruption, but it's no use. The soda keeps coming out and covering everything in its path with a hideous brown stain. I squeak and jump out of my seat as a rivulet drops on my pants. The movement causes the table to shake and more soda starts running towards Nicholas. Iggy notices this and kicks the table some, making the soda run faster. Some soda lands on Nicholas before he has time to get out of the way.

Iggy runs around the table, doing the jig and laughing, while the rest of us are dripping with Coke. Angel is muttering to herself. Nudge is snorting snot out as she laughs since her she's chewing the school's indigestible chicken. Lissa gets up off the floor and pats off her box-pleated white skirt.

When Angel realizes that the soda had also tainted her blue binder, smoke begins to come out her ears. "Nudge! You are going to pay for this!" she exclaims, incensed.

Nudge jumps up and runs, with her lunch, to a different table. Iggy follows her, wanting to escape Angel's wrath.

"It's ruined!" Angel says angrily. She takes a napkin and begins to scrub at the brown Coke stains on the blue nylon cloth. She keeps muttering "It's ruined" over and over again as she attacks her binder.

I look down and notice that the soda on my pants look as if I've wet myself. I groan. I take off my jacket and tie it backwards around my waist so it conceals the embarrassing stain.

"That, my friends, is what a jacket is for," I mutter.

After a few seconds of silence (well, except for Angel), Nicholas gasps.

"What is it?" I ask him.

"_It_ got on The Book," he hisses. He didn't raise his voice, but I could sense the boiling temper behind his words.

He held up his little brown book and quickly fanned the pages. Sure enough, the blank pages now had a brown stain on their right corners. One sentence at the beginning of The Book caught my attention as it flipped past.

_They will all encounter distressing refreshments._

The next sentence was appearing on the page one letter at a time, as if someone was writing it.

_Then, to the offi…_

The principal walks over to us, arms crossed and a stormy look on her face. "What is the meaning of this?"

"It's ruined. It's ruined. It's ruined," Angel is so absorbed in her clean-up mission that she doesn't notice the principal.

"Well… Nud – Alexandria and Ig – Isaac kinda made Angela's soda explode all over us. They're over there now," I point. The principal follows my finger to the two culprits.

"You guys have made a mess of my cafeteria. There will be repercussions for this, do you understand?" the principal looks at us in the eye.

_What the heck? I had just said that we didn't do it_.

"Go to the office. We'll get you cleaned up, and then we'll discuss this," the principal says.

_The Book… Then, to the offi…_

"Do you understand?" she repeats.

"Yes, m'am," I say. Nicholas echoes me. Angel is still violently scrubbing her blue binder. It isn't any better. In fact, all the napkin did was spread the Coke around.

"Young girl, do you understand me?" the principal asks her.

"Huh?" Angel looks up to see the principal's looming face a few inches above hers.

The principal sighs and says to us, "Go to the office. Wait for me to get there." Then, she leaves us and walks back to the front of the cafeteria.

"What happened?" Angel asks me.

"We're in trouble because we got soda all over _her_ stinking cafeteria," I say tightly.

"What?!" Angel throws her hands out to her sides in disbelief. "Did you tell her that it was Nudge and Iggy?"

"Yeah. Principal doesn't wanna listen," Nicholas says, tense.

"Ugh! I can't believe this! I never get in trouble! And now we're going to the office? This is injustice! We should sue!" Angel waves her hands around.

"Teachers always pick on the good kids," I mutter.

"Because it's easier to scare them," Angel replies.

The three of us say no more and we walk to the office. Once we get there, we each take a seat in the waiting area. I look up and gasp. I tap Nicholas' arm frantically and point.

Dylan. Is. In. The. Office.

"What the heck is he doing in here?" Nicholas whispers to me in our special volume.

"I don't know. You know more about him than me," I reply.

Dylan is smiling and talking to the secretary. "Thank you so much for explaining my schedule to me. I just couldn't figure it out," he says in a honey-like voice.

"Oh, you're welcome, dear." Boy has he got the secretary fooled. "It's very smart of you to drop in here before next week starts. It's very nice of your dad to drive you here, too."

"Yes, well. Since I'll be going here on Monday, I thought it'd be nice to sort everything out. My dad agreed with me, so it wasn't too much of a hassle for him to find some spare time during his lunch break," Dylan still has that sugar-coated smile plastered on.

I stare wide-eyed at Nicholas. _Dylan is going to be going here, too? They let in a psycho boy who owns a ray gun? The district sure has low standards now. But then again, they don't know about the other side of him._

"I hope you'll find Trig challenging enough. It is a really good class," the secretary says.

_WTH?! He's also in Trigonometry? We're doomed!_

"Thank you. Have a good weekend!" Dylan says. He flashes the secretary another huge smile and turns towards the door.

"Yes. You, too!" The secretary waves after him.

Dylan pushes the door to the office open. As he passes by us, he gives us a chilling look. I grip Nicholas hand and force myself to stare at the wall instead of our ray-gun captor.

When he exits the school, Angel turns to me. "Do you guys know him or something?"

"No," I lie. "Why would you think that?"

"He looked at you guys kinda funny, like he has a score to settle with you," Angel says.

_Oh yeah. He has a score alright_.

Soon, the principal comes in, her five-inch heels clacking against the floor. She gestures for us to follow her into her office. Then, she shuts the door and motions for us to sit down. Once we're all ready, she begins her interrogation.

"Do you three understand the severity of the misbehavior you have committed? You have destroyed my property by spilling soda all over it. You have tarnished the beauty of my school with your brown soda stains. Soda is for drinking, not for playing with," she begins.

Nicholas taps my knee under the table as if to say, "Let me answer her questions."

That would be a smart move. Nicholas does have a poker face of steel, and a monotone voice that reveals nothing but the words that he says. He just might be able to pull us out of this one.

Out of nowhere, he pulls out a voice recorder. The red light is on, signaling that's turned on. "I believe the school's beauty belongs to all," he says.

The principal freezes, realizing her selfish slip and what Nicholas did. She smiles, pats us on the back, and says, "It was nice talking with you. Get back to class now. And please, hand over the tape recorder."

"Gladly," Nicholas says as he gives the black box to our principal.

And we walk out of the office.

_And where did that recorder come from?_

"I'll explain that later," Nicholas tells us in a soft whisper.

* * *

**A/N: I'm going to try to update as often as possible these next few days. It's back to school for me in a little bit. {Sigh}**

**Please tell me what you think. Criticism is welcomed, too. **

**The prophecy will unfold in a few chapters! Keep reading, my minions!**

**Folding Turtles, out! ;) **


	21. All Hail the Farting Burrito

"Oh! This weekend will be splendid fun!" Angel exclaims.

Mr. Colby is sitting behind his desk, happily drinking a cup of coffee. The scent of vanilla coffee mate sleepily shrouds the room. A pile of papers sits dejectedly beside his laptop. They are the rest of the reading packets for this chapter before the class reviews for the test.

"Ugh, don't remind me about the dance you practically pushed me into," I reply with a groan.

Nicholas smiles reassuringly and gives my hand a gentle squeeze.

Then, Reese, Lissa, and Hornet-boy and his friend come into the classroom. They look around for Nicholas. Once they see him, they walk over. Lissa catches Iggy glancing shyly at Angle. She smirks and elbows him – a smidge too hard.

"Ow!" Iggy protests. He jumps back to nurse his arm.

"Iggy has something he wants to say to you," Lissa proclaims.

Angel looks at him expectantly. Iggy chuckles nervously and slowly backs away. He's going for the classic "pretend it never happened, and it never did" ruse.

Lissa sees what he's doing and steps behind him. Iggy bumps into her. She assumes the most dangerous expression and holds up her elbow as a threat. Iggy retreats to his first location, and Lissa smiles.

"Ha, ha, ha… Angel… Um…" Iggy stammers. "I – I – I – was thinking – may… may… maybe – t…t…t…that…"

Lissa pats him really hard on the back. "Come on. You've got something to say, spit it out. Wouldn't want to keep her guessing, now, would you?"

Iggy and Angel both look away and hide their reddening faces behind their hands. Lissa winks at Iggy, even though he doesn't see it. Nudge's powerful elbow jab on Angel works a little better. Angel sits up straight, smiling smugly at Iggy.

_Ha, ha! Having fun with a taste of your own medicine?_

In all of the excitement and the pressure of the moment, Angel's gastrointestinal system decides to relieve itself at that moment in the form of silent flatulence. Angel hopes no one noticed. Her wish is not granted.

"Aww… Gross… Someone didn't take the cafeteria's specialty burrito very well," Hornet-boy complains. His friend puts both hands around his neck and pretends to gag and suffocate. His eyes bug out, and he slowly falls to the floor.

Everyone except Angel has their hands clamped over their noses and mouths. Whenever someone talks, the words come out warped and echoic.

Iggy staggers backward like he's about to pass out. He says in a purposely raspy voice, "No… I see the light fading… Help – me…"

"Oh, now you're just being melodramatic," Angel crosses her arms and glares at the boys.

Iggy, Hornet-boy, and his friend all immediately spring back to life and point at Angel. "The culprit!" they declare. "It was _you_ who brought this stinky curse upon this land!"

Angel's face steams up. She clenches her fists by her side. Her mouth is twisted into a tight snood. Her ears let out the smoke of embarrassment. "That is incredibly rude of you to say!"

Iggy gets an idea and pokes the other two. He whispers something in their ears, and the conniving smile of an eighth-grade conspiracy sneaks across their faces. All three of them leave at the same time to take their seats, but today, in the same row as Angel, Nudge, I, and Nicholas.

"Whatever. See you later," the boys say, "_farting burrito_!"

Angel takes one step and raises her fist. Nudge blocks her path. "Whoa, whoa… They're not worth it. Just let it go."

"Oh, they consider themselves so superbly clever." Angel grumbles after them.

Iggy whispers what Angel just said into the other two boys' ears. They snicker, enraging Angel even more.

Lissa is still standing up, unsure of where to sit. Iggy motions for Hornet-boy and his friend to scoot down one seat. Iggy also moves over one. He pats the seat in between himself and Angel and nods at Lissa to sit there. She fidgets a little, but she accepts the offer.

Eventually, World History begins. Angel tries to focus on the class, but she finds that to be a difficult thing to do when there are three boys laughing continuously right next to her.

"Everyone has their misgivings," Nudge whispers (not so) helpfully.

"The will to publically humiliate your friend is a much more terrible one than most," Angel says wisely.

"Awwww… Come on, you'll still go to the dance with him, right?" Nudge asks.

"How did you know I wanted…?" Angel begins, but abruptly shuts her mouth when the teacher begins to speak.

"Get the packet on my desk and read it. By now, you should know the drill. Highlight anything important," Mr. Colby says.

Everyone moves to go to Mr. Colby's desk. Angel gets up to fetch the packet like the teacher said. When she walks past Iggy, Hornet-boy, and his friend, they whisper in a reverent voice, "All hail the farting burrito!"

"You would be wise to shut your mouths," Angel says at them snippily.

"Oooo… Farting burrito is mad at us! We are so terrified! Will she curse this land again?" the boys ask her. They look at each other and try to control their laughing so the teacher won't catch wind of what's happening.

Being at a loss for words, Angel looks menacingly at them one last time. _How delightful having a machete will be right now. Even if it wasn't a real one, and it was one of those blunt, plastic things the stores sell for Halloween, seeing them cower in terror from a fake one would be great revenge for the humiliation they have piled on top of me._ I hear Angel's voice in my head.

Hold on, I hear Angel's voice in my head? WTH?

_I am never giving her a machete_. I think.

_True 'dat_. Nicholas agrees. In my head.

I can hear Nicholas' voice in my head.

Ooo. This might turn out to be really fun. I'm grinning devilishly, for those of you who can't see me.

When Angel walks back from the teacher's desk, packet in hand, her tormentors are seated again. Hornet-boy makes an imitation tooting sound by pressing his mouth against his arm. The three of them erupt into laughter. She ignores them and goes to her seat.

"Aww… The farting burrito won't listen to us anymore," Hornet-boy's friend complains just loud enough for Angel to hear him. She tenses in her seat and forces herself to not look at him. She stares daggers at the chalkboard, burning a hole in it by the intensity of her gaze.

Hornet-boy makes the tooting noise again, and the three are encased in a bad bout of the giggles. They clap high fives under their desks.

I roll her eyes and begin reading my packet.

**The ancient Greeks believed it was not wise to anger the gods. **

_Ha, ha, ha… Maybe it wasn't so smart of me to totally diss the Oracle's prophecy… Is lightning going to strike me or something? Note to self: Ask Percy Jackson for a lightning rod when I find a way to bring fictional characters to life. _

**Even though they are gods, they still unleashed their wrath on the mortals who got in their way or displeased them.**

_Unleash their wrath…? Okay, this does not look good._

**The Greek gods, especially, could not condone any mortal who questioned their wisdom and supremacy.**

_Snap. Second note to self: Buy the Oracle a box of chocolates. Gods like sweets, right?_

**There was, one day, a girl called Arachne. She was a fantastic weaver. She made the loom sing with vibrant colors and all sorts of complex patterns. Arachne became a bit of a braggart when people told her how amazing her talent was. Soon, she was so proud that she challenged even the mighty Athena – the goddess who invented the loom and taught the humans how to weave – to best her weaving skills.**

**Athena would not stand for this. She descended onto earth and met the girl called Arachne. They had a weaving competition to see who the best weaver was. Arachne wove a magnificent story on her loom, earning ooos and ahhhs from the spectators. Athena kicked aside the simple wool threads that had been provided for her. Instead, she used her godly****magic to call forth colors from the sky and the ground; she used the sparkle of the heavenly stars. Athena crafted a weaving like none other the mortals had ever seen. **

**Arachne felt shamed when she compared the goddess' brilliant weaving to her own lowly one. She realized she had been bested by Athena, and she took off into the surrounding woods.**

**Athena would not let her get away that easily. She chased after her and put a final curse on the girl.**

**Arachne shrank, smaller and smaller. Her beautiful skin turned black and furry. Her arms turned into legs, and under Athena's magic, she grew four more until she had eight. Three more pairs of eyes popped up on her head. When Athena was done, a tiny Arachne scuttled around on the ground. The first spider was born.**

"**Since you are such a master of weaving, you shall henceforth spend all the rest of your days doing so. When you and your children are looked upon, it shall be remembered what happens to those who do not honor the gods," were Athena's parting words. True to Athena's curse, Arachne spent the rest of her life spinning beautiful, intricate webs as do her children to this day. **

I shiver and drop my packet in shock. _Is this the Oracle telling me to prepare to become a spider?_

_Oh, fantastic. Now I'll probably go into the woods behind my house, and the Oracle will show herself to me in a blaze of glory, and I'll get turned into a spider_.

_Oh, it's probably just a coincidence_. Nicholas tries to comfort me.

Hey, did you know I can hear your voice now? I ask him.

The connection… The prophecy may be gone, but the end is still close. Nicholas replies.

What do you mean?

There are some things that you can never be rid of.

I'm about to reply back, but then I see a spider on my desk, staring at me with all eight of its glorious eyes. I totally flip out.

"AHHHH! GET AWAY FROM ME! I DON'T WANT TO BE LIKE YOU!" I scream at the spider. I take my History packet and bring it down on the spider, sending it to its doom.

Everyone in the class looks at me. Mr. Colby comes over and puts a hand on my shoulder.

"What's the matter here?" he asks me.

I try to bring my packet with spider guts on the back behind me so Mr. Colby can't see how totally tight-strung I am. It doesn't work. Mr. Colby's eyes are all-seeing.

"Would you like a new packet?" he offers.

I smile the best I can, trying to calm myself down, and reply, "That would be nice."

While Mr. Colby goes to fetch another packet for me, Hornet-boy and his friend leans over and whispers, "Farting burrito, have you cursed the Arachnid Avenger?"

Angel gives them the evil eye. I put my head down in my hands and pray that nickname doesn't stick.

Stick.

Like the gooey innards of the innocent spider I just killed.

_Oh god, I'm so sorry, Arachne_.

A pile of papers comes down on top of my head. "Here you go," Mr. Colby says cheerfully.

* * *

**A/N: Garfield likes to squish spiders, too. **


End file.
